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THE EVOLUTION OF } 
MODERN GERMANY. 


BY 


WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON 


Author of “Germany and the Germans,” “ The German Workman,” 
“ German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle,” ‘** Prince 
Bismarck and State Socialism” 


NEW YORK 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
597-599 FIFTH AVENUE 


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INTRODUCTION 


LTHOUGH the writing of this book was begun several years 

ago, unavoidable circumstances have delayed its completion. 

Yet the delay has not, to the writer at least, been a disadvan- 

tage, since it has extended the perspective of his subject, and 

has made it possible to base many opinions and conclusions 

upon a wider survey and a larger generalisation than would 
otherwise have been possible. 

The title of the book sufficiently describes the aim which the 
writer has had in view: that of tracing the transformation of 
the Germany of half a century ago into the Germany which 
we know to-day. That transformation has been essentially 
economic ; hence economic questions largely occupy the follow- 
ing pages. At the same time several other problems which 
closely affect the internal and external development of the 
Empire have been passed in review. It may be desirable— 
though it should not be necessary—to say that the book is not 
intended to have any bearing whatever upon the economic issues 
\which exercise the British public at the present time. The 
chapters have been made as little technical as possible, though 
several of them are necessarily occupied by a recital of facts 
“and figures illustrative of industrial and commercial progress. 

_ This book is not intended to be either a glorification or 


3" disparagement of Germany from the standpoint of industry 


“and labour. It seeks to show the Germans as a trading 
nation just as they are; to describe their efforts, energies, 
“successes; to tell British readers what they ought to know, 
cand must know, if they would understand how it is that 


“Germany has gone ahead so rapidly during recent years, not, 


‘ 


‘however, by way of discouraging but of reassuring them. For 


there is really little mystery about Germany’s industrial pro- 
Vv 
54 Sire 


vi INTRODUCTION 


gress; it has been achieved by means and methods which are 
open to all the world if only people will employ them. Science, 
education, application, and an equal regard for small as for large 
things—these, in the main, are the causes of Germany’s success 
as a rival in the markets of the world, and, speaking generally, 
it is safe to say that where the enterprise of other nations has 
fallen back in these markets it has been owing to deficiency in 
one or other of these conditions, upon which Germany lays 
special stress. 
It is the writer’s opinion that German industrial competition, 
far from having reached its highest point, will inevitably increase 
in severity in the near future. Several reasons seem to afford 
ample justification for this opinion. One is the comparative 
youth of German industry. Another is the fact that national 
thought and energy are being devoted to mercantile pursuits 
with a whole-heartedness witnessed in no other Continental 
country. This is not to say that the German industrialist 
and merchant are superior to their rivals; they do, however, 
show an absorption in their callings which in these days is not 
everywhere fashionable. The furor Teutonicus of old has its 
modern counterpart in an ardor T'eutonicus whose object is 
material wealth, and this object is steadily being achieved. 
Further, German industrial competition will be stimulated still 
more by the rapid growth of population and the absence of 
German colonies suitable for settlement by Europeans. The 
facts —for facts they undoubtedly are—upon which this 
prognosis is based are set forth in detail in Chapter XVII. 
There is one other unrecognised influence which has in the 
past helped in a high degree to direct enterprise into industrial 
channels and will help in the future. It is the influence of that 
policy of nationalisation and municipalisation which has been 
developed in Germany as in no other country. ® So many 
domains of public utility have been entered, and even appro- 
priated, by the State and municipal bodies—the railways) and 
tramways, harbours, river and canal transport, insurance, bank- 
ing, &c.—that private effort and capital were compelled to/ seek 
outlets in productive undertakings more exclusively thar has 
been the case in countries which have fought shy of collective 
enterprise. We may judge the policy of nationalisatio and 
municipalisation as we will, it has unquestionably helped to inake 


INTRODUCTION vii 


Germany more an industrial and less a merely trading country 
than if would otherwise have been. 

On the other hand, there are some circumstances which may 
well afford assurance in circles alarmed by the extent and causes 
of German competition. Hitherto the German industrialist has 
- enjoyed specially favourable costs of production, notably owing 
to the lower wages paid and the longer hours worked, but the 
existing relationships between capital and labour afford no reason 
for assuming that this advantage will always continue in the 
same measure as hitherto. Owing to a variety of causes 
Germany is also fast losing its character as a cheap country ; 
its people are no longer satisfied with the old simple life; they 
may have larger incomes than formerly, but they also spend 
more. This ‘breaking with the old spirit of frugality and 
renunciation may imply a rising standard of civilisation; it is 
certain that the effect is to increase such important elements 
in the cost of production as salaries and wages, interest, and 
profit. 

Viewing the question of German competition specially from 
the standpoint of his own country and its interests, it is the 
writer’s opinion that British enterprise will have nothing to fear 
if only it will follow the large aims and emulate the courage and 
resolution of the pioneers of our national industry, who not only 
gave to British trade the pre-eminent position which is nowadays 
being assailed, but who even created, directly or indirectly, 
most of those German industries whose assault is proving most 
effective. The most practical and the only politic spirit in 
which to meet Germany’s competition is the spirit of inflexible 
good-humour, combined with an equally inflexible determination 
not to abandon ingloriously fields of enterprise upon which 
so many victories of peace and civilisation have been won in 
the past. 








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CONTENTS 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION , e ° e ® e e Vv 
CHAPTER I 

THE MODERN SPIRIT . ; : ; t 1 


Goethe on epochs of retrogression and progress—The intellectual 
transformation of Germany—The triumph of materialisni— Fichée’s 
repudiation of world-ambitions—Effect of the French War—The 
modernising of the school§—Professors Paulsen and Rein quoted— 
Attractions of a’ commercial career—The cult of forcee—HKyidence 
in political and economic movements and in architecturé—The 
spirit of modern Germanism is the spirit of subdual—Romanism” 
in German character—The German unapproachable in his com- 
mand over matter—His failure in the government of spiritual 
a worship of systems—National faults the faults of 
youth. 


CHAPTER 


: . ; Mal M5 


The danger of generalising about Germany—A threefold division 
of the country—Economic and political contrasts thus brought to 
light—Characteristics of North and South—West and East Prussia 
contrasted—The West the centre of the great industries—The 
incidence of population—The large estates of the Hast—Effect of 
the manorial system—Backwardness of the Eastern provinces, 


TRIPARTITE GERMANY. ° 


CHAPTER III 
THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY ‘ , ; ; I i 


Economic influence of the French War and the establishment of 

the Empire—Increase of the ‘‘ large” towns—The ratio of urban 

to rural population at various dates—Geographical incidence of 

the growth of population in recent years—The migration to the 

industrial districts—Comparison of occupation censuses—Classifi- 

cation of industrial workpeople in 1905—Devolopment of the coal, 
ix 


x CONTENTS 


: PAGE 
iron, and engineering industries since 1871—The shipbuilding in- 
dustry—The electrical industry—The textile trades—The tendency 
towards industrial concentration—The position of the handicrafts 

and the home industries—State efforts to encourage the rural 
industries. 


CHAPTER IV 


FOREIGN TRADE AND SHIPPING ; . ° gan OO 


The growth of Germany’s foreign trade—Comparison of imports 
and exports—Geographical distribution of foreign trade—The trade 
with the British Empire—Germany’s increasing negative balance 
of trade—Growth of the mercantile marine—The fastest vessels 
afloat—Development of the sea and river ports: Hamburg, Bremen, 
Mannheim, Frankfort, &c. 


CHAPTER V 


THE PERSONAL EQUATION 3 . m ; ae 


Industrial Germany the child of industrial Hngland— Harly 
English enterprise in Germany—Cobden’s prophecies in 1838— 
German commercial enthusiasm—The first generation of indus- 
trialists—The love of system—Reasons for German success—The 
German standard of life—Lower salaries and wages—Modern in- 
dustrial plant—Industrial concentration—Germany and America 
compared—‘‘ Mixed” versus ‘‘pure”’ iron works—Germans not 
inventive but imitative and adaptive—Consideration for customers’ 
wishes—Government encouragement and help—The State rail- 
ways—Inland waterways—International exhibitions—The central 
agency for industry in Hesse—The Emperor’s influence—Chambers 
of Commerce, their constitution and functions—The industrial 
associations—Foreign trade agencies—The German theory of 
trading—The commercial traveller. 


CHAPTER VI 


TECHNICAL EDUCATION 4 ; ‘ i hidet i Ae 


Value of technical education in the service of industry—Moderate 
cost of German technical schools—The schools of Saxony cited: 
their number, variety, and age—Reliance upon private effort and 
sacrifice—Enthusiasm for technical education in Saxony—Hmula- 
tion shown by the schools. 


OHAPTER VII 
CAPITAL AND LABOUR. ’ A : , , 106 


The relations between capital and labour—The legal status of labour 
and its organisations—The trade unions and their membership— 
The Socialist organisations—The Christian (Roman Catholic) and 
Hirsch-Duncker organisations—Revenue and expenditure—The 
‘‘free labour” unions—Trade unions as fighting organisations— 


CONTENTS xi 


PAGE 
Strikes and their tesult—Progress of labour—Future of trade 
unionism—The | @gooeet Press—Loyalty of trade unionists to 
their leaders— exception to the rule—Trade union contribu- 
tions—Smalind/s of official salaries—The workmen’s secretariates 
—The attitudes of capital to labour—The industrial princes of 
Rhineland. Westphalia — Their hostility to trade unions— The 
Westphaliang®iners’ strike in 1905—Organisations of employers— 
The bitterng 5 of the struggle—A better feeling in the South— 
Insurance ¢22ainst strikes and lock-outs—Present phases of the 
labour mo“ement—The agitation for higher wages and shorter 
hours—Th? ten-hours day predominant—Attitude of the Imperial 
Government—Labour policy of the State and municipal authorities. 


CHAPTER VIII 
METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL CONCILIATION x au Labo 


Statutory Workmen’s Committees—The employers’ objections to 
them—Functions of the Industrial Courts—Their limited action 
as boards of conciliation—Chambers of Labour—Proposed estab- 
lishment of an Imperial Ministry of Labour—The wages agree- 
ments in the building and small trades—Their number and 
operation—Advantages and disadvantages from the workpeople’s 
standpoint—Legal force of the wages agreements—Attitude of the 
Bavarian Government thereto—Aititude of the employers—Profit- 
sharing— ‘‘Social welfare” institutions—Factory colonies of dwell- 
ings—Antipathy of the working classes to employers’ philanthropy 
—Indusirial Co-operation. 


- 


CHAPTER IX 


THE WORKMAN 4 . oc) ‘ . » 148 


The characteristics of the German workman—Comparison with the 
English workman—tThe difference mainly that between acquired 
and natural aptitudes—The neatness and smartness of the German 
workman—The influence of the school and the army—The factory 
bath and clothes locker—The workman’s long hours and few holi- 
days—Sunday relaxations—Socialist festivities—Attractions of the 
lottery—The value of social legislation—The insurance laws and 
their popularity—Socialist testimony in their praise—Expenditure 
in sickness and accident ben~‘it and old-age pensions—-The German 
workmen’s thirst for knowleaz. —A visit to their educational work- 
shops—Herr Bebel as a Mutual Improvement Society debater— 
Labour education societies— University Settlement work—Attitude 
of the authorities towards labour schools—Socialism and the 
theatre—The labour temperance movement, its origin and extent 
—Class awakening. 


| CHAPTER X 
THE SYNDICATES 3 ‘ : . ; OL 


The concentration of capital and industrial enterprise—The princi- 
pal industries syndicated—The effect of Protection in encouraging 
the growth of syndicates—Protective duties not the cause but 
the occasion—German writers quoted on the point—The abolition 


\ 
xii CONTENTS | 


PAGE 
of Protection would not abolish the syndicates They are sympto- 
matic of a movement towards the more efficien organisation of 
industry—The principal forms of industrial com\jnation now in 
vogue in Germany—Examples in different industri\:_The charges 
against the syndicates stated and considered—The\\yrice policy of 
the Coal Syndicate—Reference to the Spirit Syndicie¢—The prac- 
tice of ‘‘ dumping ’’—Injury done to the manufactui) g industries 
—Instances given of underselling abroad—Testimon\ of German 
Chambers of Commerce on the subject—The complaints of the 
retail trader—The standpoints of capital and labour—he absorp- 
tion of small by large undertakings—‘‘ Mixed” versus “pure” 
works in the iron industry—Has the movement towards eombina- 
tion taken its final form?—Trusts now openly advocated—A 
possible alternative is that the system of large combinations 
may break down for want of strong men—The attitude: of the 
working classes—Certain trade unions favourable to the syndicates 
—Proposed legislative measures for the control of the syndicates— 
Attitude of the Association for Social Reform—Professor\ G. 
mod quoted—Nationalisation of the coal mines widely advu- 
cated. 





CHAPTER XI 
STATE ENTERPRISE——RAILWAYS AND CANALS. * (\ 207 


German ideas as to the sphere of public and private enterprise— 
The extent of State initiative—The revenues from State under- 
takings—The State as owner of lands and forests—State insurance 
for agriculture in Bavaria—The State railway system—Prince 
Bismarck’s ideal of Imperial railways frustrated—The railway 
revenues and taxation—The profits of the Prussian railways—The 
extent of the national water-ways and canals—Recent canal 
schemes—The projected river navigation duties—Constitutional 
aspects of the question. 


CHAPTER XII 
AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY. . , e . 226 


The difficulty of preserving the right balance between agriculture 
and industry—The prevalence of one-sided views—Importance of 
agriculture in Germany—Agriculture and military efficiency—The 
rural movement—Number of agricultural owners—Cultivation of 
the land—The national production of grain—Corn-growing in 
Prussia—Other ground crops—Vineyards, orchards, hop-growing, 
spirit distillation, tobacco growing, the beet-sugar industry—Agri- 
culture and fiscal policy—Effect of industry on corn imports—The 
agricultural State—Conflict between agriculture and industry— 
Prince Bismarck on agrarian policy—Imports and exports of wheat 
and rye in recent years—Demand of the corn-growers—The present 
conditions of agriculture favourable—Higher prices and increased 
value of land—The Prussian Minister of Agriculture quoted—The 
encumberment of the land— All parties agreed that Protec- 
tion cannot be summarily abandoned--The argument of the 
‘‘National Granary ’?—Count von Caprivi quoted— Attitude of 
the Protectionists of the Chair—Prince Biilow’s claim to be an 
‘‘agrarian Chancellor’”—Agrarian and industrial duties insepar- 
able—Demands of the Agrarian League. 


CONTENTS xiii 


CHAPTER XII 
PAGE 


THE SMALL HOLDINGS MOVEMENT { _ 2 ie BOO 


Present extent of small holdings in Germany—Opinion of the East 
Prussian Land Commission—The creation of small holdings can 
only be at the expense of the great estates—The law of entail—The 
Prussian system of rent-fee farms—‘ Inner colonisation ” by land 
companies—The creation of labourers’ holdings—The Prussian 
Minister of Agriculture’s proposals on the subject. 


CHAPTER XIV 
THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM i - ° 20 aG0 


Extent of rural migration—The “ land-flight” of the labourer and 
its causes—The effect of machinery in increasing seasonal labour— 
Conditions of rural life—Housing and wages of the agricultural 
labourer—Rural migration and poverty: a statistical comparison 
—Methods of remuneration—Payment in kind, and examples of 
wages agreements—The spirit of feudalism still perpetuated in 
North and East Prussia—Baron vom Sitein’s laws against serfdom 
—How the effect of the Edict of Emancipation was weakened— 
The ‘‘ Servants’ Ordinances ’”—Inability of the agricultural labourer 
to combine or strike—Breach of contract by agricultural labourers 
—Modern social legislation has ignored the rural labourer—A 
Prussian landownez’s opinion of lost opportunities—The system 
of semi-bound labour doomed—Proposed remedies for the “ land- 
flight ’—The importation of foreign labour—Absence of organisa- 
tion in rural districts—The unpopularity of Socialism amongst 
agricultural labourers. 


CHAPTER XV 
CO-OPERATION , p 3 : ‘ : e 294 


The German genius for Co-operation—Number and character of 
Co-operative societies and undertakings—Importance of the rural 
banks and credit societies—Distributive Co-operation not developed 
as much as in England—The Raiffeisen Co-operative movement 
described—The Prussian Central Co-operative Bank—The attitude 
of the State towards the Co-operative movement. 


CHAPTER XVI 
THE POPULATION QUESTION . ; , : - 308 


The crusade against infantile mortality—The decline in the birth- 
rate—Its effect on population counteracted by a decreasing death- 
rate—Vitality statistics of town and country districts compared— 
Natality and mortality rates of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and 
Wiirtemberg—Causes of high infantile mortality—Action of the, 
State and municipal authorities—Decline of natural feeding and‘ 
its encouragement—-The work of the infant dispensaries in the 


Xiv CONTENTS 


PAGE 
large. towns—Public regulation of the milk supply—The care for 
children of illegitimate birth—The protection of mothers—Provi- 
sions of the Industrial Code on the subject—A scheme of mother- 
hood insurance—The Kaiserin Augusta Victoria House at Charlot- 
tenburg—The significance of the infant mortality crusade from the 
standpoint of population—Solicitude for youth of school age—The 
pioneer work of Tiirk and Frébel—Children spared in Germany 
where women are spared in Hngland—The factory laws and the 
employment of children—The doctor in the school—The anti- 
consumption crusade—Physical exercises and outdoor pastimes— 
Co-operation of the Social Democrats in social reform movements 
—Industrial legislation and the insurance laws. 


CHAPTER XVII 
NATIONAL EXPANSION . E r f 5 B34 


Prince Bismarck’s idea of Germany as a ‘‘ satiated State ’—His 
conceptions of foreign policy—The modern development of Welt- 
polttk in Germany — Weltpolitik an economic necessity for 
Germany—The pressure of the population question—Dr. P. Rohr- 
bach on Germany’s economic limitations—The alternatives open 
to Germany: emigration or new trade outlets—The national food 
question—Limits of Germany’s corn-growing capacity—The ideal 
of the agricultural State threatened—The present and possible 
density of population in Germany—A Socialistic view of Welt- 
polittk—German mercantile competition is bound to become more 
severe—The possibility of emigration—Germany’s colonies of little 
value for settlement purposes—Hmigration has greatly decreased 
during recent years—Pan-Germanic projects offer no solution of 
the population problem—aAtitention turned to South America and 
Asia Minor—The German colonies in Brazil—The Bagdad Railway 
and German expectations—The policy of the open door—The ex- 
tension of Germany’s sea power—Popularity of the ‘large navy” 
movement—Two motives in operation, the economic and the 
political—The Emperor the true director of naval policy—His 
conceptions of world-policy—The naval construction programmes 
—The nation united in calling for a large navy—The forces behind 
the movement—The Navy League and its propagandism—No 
possible finality in naval programmes—Ofificial statement of the 
German position—England’s attitude. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
THE COLONIES. . M 3 " . ~ 858 


Early colonial enterprises—The modern colonial movement—Angra 
Pequena—Prince Bismarck’s short method—His unwillingness to 
lead the movement—His principles of colonisation—‘‘ Governing 
merchant, not governing bureaucrat ’’—The reaction and its causes 
—Financial cost to the Empire—The wars and insurrections— 
Administrative deficiencies—Government on Prussian principles— 
The ‘colonial scandals’”—Herr Dernburg’s policy—The excesses 
of the white traders—The Herero rising—The force theory of 
colonisation. 


CONTENTS XV 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE NEW COLONIAL ERA g ji . . Ole 


The new departure in 1907—A Secretaryship of State for the 
Colonies—Herr Dernburg’s colonial crusade—The appeal to national 
pride and interest—The colonies as sources of raw material— 
Natural wealth of the colonies—The cotton plantations—A propa- 
gandism of promises—‘‘ Colonial legends””—Distrust of the trading 
classes—Disagreement of colonial authorities—Present condition 
of the colonies—Area and population—Imperial subsidies—Revenue 
and trade of the colonies—The labour problem—The prospects of 
South-West Africa—The decimation of the Hereros—The need of 
railways in the colonies—The objects of the colonial movement— 
The nation’s honour at stake—Unity of parties on the question— 
Attitude of the Social Democrats—The Stuttgart Congress of 1907 
—The inevitableness of a colonial army—England and the German 
colonial ambitions, 


CHAPTER XX 


THE PRICE OF EMPIRE i fA < A - 402 


The present financial position of the Empire—Parties call for 
an Imperialistic policy, but are unwilling to pay the cost—Increase 
of the Empire’s expenditure during recent years—The extension of 
the army and navy the principal cause—Debts of the Empire and 
the States—Much of the indebtedness of the States is nominal— 
Prussia’s national balance-sheet—The Empire’s need of more 
revenue—Direct versus indirect taxation—Present sources of Im- 
perial revenue—Direct taxes not opposed to the constitution— 
Objections to them stated—Additional revenue will probably be 
derived from tobacco, beer, and spirit—The idea of a State spirit 
monopoly—Income-tax and its incidence in the principal German 
States—The revenue derived from remunerative State enterprises. 


CHAPTER XXI 


CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL INFLUENCES ‘ « 424 


The stability of the Empire—Attitude towards the Empire of the 
Prussian landed party—Prince Bismarck on Prussian particu- 
larism—The enthusiasm for the Empire has abated since 1871— 
Monarchy has been strengthened in the interval—Goethe on the 
unity of Germany—The federal States in a stronger position than 
before the Empire was established—Reasons for the chastened 
mood of present-day Imperialism—The Reichstag has proved 
disappointing—German political parties and their fondness for 
criticism — The Imperial constitution a compromise between 
incompatible theories of government—The nation outside the 
government of the country—Competence of the Reichstag—The 
Government is not independent of parties but can only do its work 
by reliance on a party alliance—liffect upon public life of the 
impotence of parties—The present trend of constitutional contro- 
versy in Germany—The Prussian franchise question—The three- 


( 


xvi JONTENTS — 


PAGE 
class system of election—The redistribution question in Prussia 
and the Empire—The argument against the numerical principle 
of representation stated—The theory of ministerial responsibility— 
German constitutional government favours the ‘‘ personal régime.” 


CHAPTER XXII 
THE OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM , ' . 5 . 444 


The reverse of Social Democracy at the last elections, its extent 
and causes—Attitude of the small farmers and artisans—The rising 
of the middle classes—Prince Bismarck on the apathy of the con- 
tented citizen—Social Democracy and the middle classes—The 
Erfurt programme—Socialism and the property-instinct in human 
nature—A propagandism of poverty and discontent—Attitude of 
Socialism towards thrift—Socialist house-owners—The barrenness 
of the Socialist parliamentary party—Evidence of party journals 
on the subject—The negative nolicy of Socialism—Calwer, Bern- 
stein, and Parvus quoted—The new spirit of accommodation— 
Opinions of Herr von Vollmar—Possibility and conditions of an 
alliance with the Radicals—Socialism due to the apathy of the 
burgher parties towards social evils—Socialism and monarchy— 
Difference between the Socialism of the North and South. 


CHAPTER XXIII f 
THE POLISH QUESTION ° 2 > . 


Prince Bismarck on the Polish question—Germanism versts 
Polonism—lIncrease of the Polish population in the East of Prussia 
—Poles in the West—Spread of the Polish movement to Silesia— 
Inconstancy of the Prussian Government’s Polish policy—Th 
Poles will not sacrifice their cause to their religion—The PolishR 
indictment — The language question— The promise of King 
Frederick William III. of Prussia—Abolition of Polish from the 
schools—The school strikes of 1901 and 1906—The “ Settlement ”’ 
of the Polish provinces—How the Poles have counteracted the 
Government’s endeavours— Activity of the Polish land banks— 
German landowners sell to Polish buyers—The competition for 
land has resulted in excessive prices—EHconomic results of the 
Settiement scheme—The prosperity of the Polish districts in- 
creased—Political failure of the scheme—The Poles more numerous 
and influential than ever—The rise of a Polish middle class—The 
new expropriation law—Attitude of the Poles towards the Germans 
—Intolerance answered by intolerance—The Polish political associa- 
tions—The alleged revolutionary aims of the Polish movement. 


INDES $ 2 3s e e 


CHAPTER I 
THE MODERN SPIRIT 


Goethe on epochs of retrogression and progress—The intellectual transforma- 
tion of Germany—The triumph of materialism—Fichte’s repudiation of 
world-ambitions—Effect of the French War—The modernising of the 
schools—Professors Paulsen and Rein quoted—Attractions of a com- 
mercial career—The cult of foree—Evidence in political and economic 
movements and in architecture—The spirit of modern Germanism is 
the spirit of subdual—Romanism in German character—The German 
unapproachable in his command over matter—His failure in the govern- 
ment of spiritual forces—German worship of systems—National faults 
the faults of youth. 


igs one of his letters to Eckermann, Goethe strikes truth at a 
deep level when he says, ‘‘I will tell you something, and 
you will often find it confirmed in your later life. All epochs ot 
retrogression and dissolution are subjective; on the contrary, 
all progressive epochs have an objective direction. Hvery 
resolute endeavour turns from within to the world without.” 
No words could better characterise the change which has 
come over the land of Goethe in modern times or better 
describe the significance of that change. The last fifty years 
have witnessed the decay and end of the old ‘‘ subjective” 
epoch of self-absorption, of concentrated, self-centred national 
life, and the opening and the triumph of a new “ objective”’ 
era of external effort, beginning with foreign-trade ambitions 
and culminating in an ambitious foreign-politics. This more 
than anything else is the distinguishing mark of the Germany 
with which the world to-day has to do—the abandonment 
of the old national forms of life and the resolute pursuit 
of world-aims and a world-career, with the determination, 
if not to win absolute primacy amongst the nations and 


2 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


empires of modern civilisation, at least to dispute such primacy 
with any existing or potential claimant. 

A consideration of the modern evolution of Germany, entirely 
practical though its aim must inevitably be, may then fitly begin 
with a brief survey of the intellectual and spiritual transforma- 
tion which this evolution has meant and has necessitated for 
the Germany of old, the Germany which Europe and the 
civilised world knew before the economic struggle for existence 
became the greatest of international questions. 

All progress, says Herbert Spencer, means change. It does 
not necessarily follow that all change means progress. The 
transformation which has made of disunited Germany, poor, 
undeveloped, stagnant, a world-empire rich in all the resources 
of material power, with commerce in every sea and territory 
in almost every continent, is regarded by the politician and the 
man of affairs as a triumph of sagacious statesmanship and 
racial tenacity, and such a claim may be made justly. It may 
be, however, that for power which has been gained without 
power has been lost within, and that the exchange of national 
values has not been an exchange of equivalents. Whether that 
be so or not, the future alone can decide, yet the issues involved 
are immensely important, first to Germany itself, but also to the 
rest of the world—to Germany, because the staying power of a 
nation depends infinitely more upon its moral than its material 
force, or there would have been no German Empire to-day; to 
the world at large, because, in taking the conspicuous place 
amongst the nations to which ambition and destiny alike seem 
to impel it, Germany will project into civilisation new and 
powerful influences which may be either helpful or retarding. 

No one who knows Germany from its literature, and especially 
its poetry and its philosophy, and who has followed its career 
during the past generation, can have failed to recognise the 
immense change which has come over the national life and 
thought. A century ago idealism was supreme; half a century 
ago it had still not been dethroned ; to-day its place has been 
taken by materialism. This is not to say that belief in ideas 
is extinct or that high thinking has passed out of fashion in 
Germany. Even to-day scholarship is nowhere held in greater 
regard, learning is nowhere cultivated more resolutely and 
for its own sake, than in that country. The universities 


THE MODERN SPIRIT 3 


train from year to year a larger number of students than 
ever before, and if ‘‘real’’ or practical studies have to some 
extent challenged the supremacy of the old classical discipline 
in the scheme of higher education, it may safely be said that 
study is followed with all the old devotion and disinterestedness 
no less by the student than the teacher. Nevertheless, the 
dominant note of German life to-day is not that of fifty, or 
forty, or even thirty years ago. 

If one goes back a century in German history, four great 
intellectual figures will be seen to stand out unchallenged by 
their contemporaries. They were Kant and Fichte on the one 
hand, Goethe and Schiller on the other. The influence of these 
four men upon the national life in different directions has been 
incalculable. For a time it might have seemed:as though they 
were destined to be the inspirers and guides of the nineteenth 
century—Goethe and Schiller its teachers in the art of life, Kant 
and Fichte its teachers in political thought and social duty. And, 
indeed, a German culture based upon the ideals represented by 
Weimar, Konigsberg, and Berlin at that time would have been a 
force not more powerful than beneficent in moulding the nation 
and in leavening modern European thought. On the one hand 
Schiller, drawing his inspiration from classical antiquity, empha- 
sised the esthetic side of life, the claims of beauty, harmony, 
rhythm ; while Goethe stood for largeness, fulness, and com- 
pleteness of life. Viewing human life from the social side, Kant 
and Fichte instilled into their contemporaries the solemn ideas 
of duty and responsibility, applied them to civic relationships, 
and built them into the foundations upon which a new Prussia 
and a new Germany were soox to be built. 

For a time the teaching of these four sages, whose lives and 
work bridged the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,* exerted 
a controlling and overmastering influence upon the German race. 
It helped more than anything else to nerve and pull together the 
nation after the humiliations of the Napoleonic era; it created 
the spirit of self-sacrifice which not only brought Germany out 
of its troubles, but made the military triumphs of later years 
possible; it originated the enthusiasm for education which 
caused Germany to be known as a land of schools; and it is 


* Goethe lived from 1749 to 1832, Schiller from 1759 to 1805, Kant from 
1724 to 1804, and Fichte from 1762 to 1814. 


4 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


at the heart of everything that is good and wholesome in 
Germany to-day. 

Nevertheless, the national shrines are no longer to be found 
in the “‘ city of pure reason’’ in the far east of the Prussian 
monarchy or in the tranquil garden-house on the banks of the 
Ilm.“ A new spirit has entered into the national life. If the 
first half of the nineteenth century witnessed in Germany 
the reign of spirit, of ideas, the second half witnessed the 
reign of matter, of things, and it is this latter sovereignty 
which is supreme to-day. A century ago Germany was poor 
in substance but rich in ideals; to-day it is rich in substance, 
but the old ideals, or at least the old idealism, has gone. 

If one would understand how far Germany has drifted from 
the old moorings, it is only necessary to recall some words of 
Fichte’s which are strangely unpopular to-day. At the beginning 
of the nineteenth century, just when Germany was preparing for 
the last great struggle which was to free it from the grasp of the 
Western python, no man so truly voiced the national mind and 
aspiration as Fichte in the eloquent addresses to his people which 
he uttered from his chair in the University of Berlin, and it is 
interesting to recall a striking passage in which he specially 
protested against the view that Germany, the land of thinkers 
and idealists, could ever indulge materialistic ambitions. 

‘* Equally alien to the German,” he said, “‘ is the ‘ freedom of 
the sea’ which is so often proclaimed in these days. For 
centuries during the rivalry of all other nations the German has 
shown little desire to share this freedom in any great measure, 
and he will never do so. Nor need he do it. His richly endowed 
land and his industry afford him all that the cultured man needs 
for his life; he has no lack of industrial skill; and in order to 
appropriate to himself the little real gain which international 
trade yields, viz., the expansion of the scientific knowledge of 
the earth and its inhabitants, his own scientific spirit will 
provide him with a means of exchange. Oh, if only happy fate 
might have preserved the Germans as much from the indirect 
participation in the booty of the other hemisphere as it did from 
the direct! If only credulity and the desire to live as finely and 
respectably as other nations had not made into needs the un- 
necessary commodities which foreign countries produce, if we by 
renouncing the less essential needs had created tolerable condi- 


THE MODERN SPIRIT 5 


tions for our free fellow-citizens, instead of desiring to extract 
gain from the sweat and blood of the poor slave across the 
ocean,—then we should not at least have given a pretext for our 
present fate, and we should not be warred against as buyers and 
ruined as a market. . 

‘* Nearly a decade before any one could foresee what has since 
happened the Germans were advised to make themselves inde- 
pendent of the world market and to close up their borders as a 
mercantile State. This proposal went counter to our habits, 
and especially to our reverence for the coined metals, and was 
hotly opposed and rejected. Since then we have learned by 
foreign force and with dishonour to do without much which 
then we declared our liberty and our highest honour would not 
allow us to dispense with. May we seize the opportunity, when 
luxury at any rate does not blind us, of correcting our ideas ! 
May we at last recognise that, while the airy theories about 
international trade and manufacturing for the world may do for 
the foreigner, and belong to the weapons with which he has 
always invaded us, they have no application to Germans, and 
that, next to unity amongst themselves, their internal indepen- 
dence and commercial self-reliance are the second means to their 
salvation and through them to the welfare of Europe.” 

Side by side with these words may be quoted the lament of a 
recent German writer impressed by the ambiguity of a national 
prosperity which is expressed in purely material values :— 

**One is often pained and overcome with longing as one 
thinks of the German of a hundred years ago. He was poor, 
he was impotent, he was despised, ridiculed, and defrauded. 
He was the uncomplaining slave of others; his fields were their 
battleground, and the goods which he had inherited from his 
fathers were trodden under foot and dispersed. He shed his 
blood heroically without asking why. He never troubled when 
the riches of the outside world were divided without regard for 
him. He sat in his bare little room high under the roof, in 
simple coat and clumsy shoes; but his heart was full of sweet 
dreams, and uplifted by the chords of Beethoven to a rapture 
which threatened to rend his breast. He wept with Werther 
and Jean Paul in joyous pain, he smiled with the childish 
innocence of his naive poets, the happiness of his longing 
consumed him, and as he listened to Schuberi’s song his soul 


6 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


became one with the soul of the universe. Let us think no 
more of it—it is useless. We have become men, and the virtues 
of our youth are ours no more. We can but face the inevitable 
and overcome it.” * 

There never was, of course, happily for mankind, an entire 
nation of such unpractical hypersentimentalists, yet the picture 
here drawn is so far true to fact that it describes a mood, now 
no longer or rarely to be met with, which used to be distinctively 
German, and which is reflected in a host of folk-songs and 
poems that even yet have not lost their power to move the 
imagination and emotion of those who have not been drawn into 
the vortex of materialism. Germany in the mass, however, is 
made of sterner stuff. 

It is inconceivable that there could be written in Germany 
to-day such exquisite lyrics as those of Hichendorff, Ruckert, 
and Geibel, so full of true inwardness and genuine sentiment 
without a breath of sentimentality, or such stirring epics of duty 
as those which came from the souls of men like Korner and 
Arndt a hundred years ago, when Germany was weak and poor, 
and dreams of world-power had never entered the minds of its 
rulers and politicians. It is inconceivable that modern Germany 
could weep over the sorrows of Werther, or succumb to the 
haunting moods of a Lenau. It is inconceivable that a Fichte 
could to-day rise up and proclaim to a responsive nation the 
preciousness of poverty linked with spiritual worth. Even 
the centenary of Schiller’s death three years ago passed without 
rousing any emotion that could be identified with enthusiasm, 
and of that notable anniversary the royal theatres of Berlin had 
not a word to say. 

It might be thought that in a book which purports to trace 
Germany's modern economic evolution reflections of this kind 
are out of place. In truth, the full significance of that evolution 
cannot be understood without a knowledge of the conditions 
which preceded and have been supplanted by it. Germany is 
what it is to-day because the strength, ardour, eagerness 
which are inherent in the national character, yet of old were 
wont to embody themselves in ideal forms, have sought an 
outlet in new directions. It is the same Germany, yet in 


* «Der Kaiser und die Zukunft des deutschen Volkes,” G. Fuchs, 
pp. 70-71. . 


THE MODERN SPIRIT 7 


thought another; the same nation, yet its life and pursuits are 
different. 

The comment upon all this of the practical man is that 
material progress requires sacrifice of ideals, and that Germany 
would not have been able to claim a larger share in the world’s 
life had it not been willing to forego something of the old self- 
‘ culture. This is, of course, true. The old Germany and the 
new Germany could not live side by side, and the old Germany 
has given way. The significant thing is that the sacrifice has 
been made so deliberately and so completely. 

Té must be admitted that the temptations to materialism 
which came to Germany after the French War were immensely 
powerful, and such as would have sorely tried the moral 
fibre of more settled nations. The enthusiasm and energy 
which carried that war to a triumphant conclusion were not 
exhausted but rather increased when the Empire was established 
and the ardent aspiration of generations of patriots was con- 
summated. An outlet was necessary, and the French milliards 
pointed the way. Before 1870 the economic revolution had 
already begun, and Germany would have become more and more 
industrial every year by the very necessity of things, but the 
development would have been gradual, and there would have 
been no abrupt break with the past. The war, the indemnity, 
and the new Empire together gave to material enterprise an 
abnormal impetus, an impetus so strong that it has never since 
suffered check. That under circumstances so exceptional the 
national balance would be disturbed was inevitable. 

It is unnecessary to enlarge here upon the industrial and 
commercial successes which have gone together with this trans- 
formation of national thought, for they will be passed in review 
later. The present purpose is rather to point to the more 
pregnant signs of the new spirit that is dominant in German 
life. One of these signs is the materialising of education, a 
tendency by no means confined to Germany, however, nor even 
one in which that country has set the example. The movement 
began with an attack on the Gymnasia and their discouragement 
in favour of the modern schools, and it has since spread in many 
directions. To-day the teaching of English is being fostered in 
the secondary schools of Prussia as never before, yet let no one 
suppose that it is out of compliment to English literature or for 


8 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


any intellectual or ideal reason. In the Ministerial decree 
which supplanted French by English as a compulsory subject, 
reference was made for propriety’s sake to the value for literary 
and political reasons of the study of English, but the real motive 
was the practical one, the recognition that English is the 
language of commerce, and a knowledge of it the best key to 
the markets across the seas. 

It is a bitter complaint of the philosophical faculties at the 
universities, and of none so much as the Prussian, that the 
only requests for larger grants of money to which the Govern- 
ment will listen are those which come from the directors of 
the practical sciences. ‘‘ At the beginning of the nineteenth 
century,’ writes Professor Paulsen, of Berlin, than whom no 
one has more right to speak upon this subject, ‘* speculative 
philosophy was in the ascendant, and with it went humanistic 
philology, both being one in that their aim was contemplation. 
At the end of the century natural science was predominant, 
and natural science in the service of technics and medicine. 
One has only to note the increase of technical colleges and the 
expenditure which the State incurs on behalf of science ;—for 
new institutes of natural science and medicine new millions are 
always ready, but is any liberality shown towards the most 
modest needs of philology or philosophy ?’”’ * 

‘“* A onesidedness which only esteems material values and an 
increasing control over nature is destructive in its influence,” 
wrote Professor Dr. Rein, of Jena, recently, ‘‘ and this one- 
sidedness set in during the second half of the nineteenth 
century in Germany. We Germans have ceased to be the 
nation of thinkers, of poets, and dreamers, we aim now only at 
the domination and exploitation of nature. ... Have we 
Germans kept a harmonious balance between the economic and 
the moral side of our development, as was once the case with the 
Greeks? No; with the enormous increase of wealth dark shadows 
have fallen on our national life. In the nation as in the indi- 
vidual we see with the increase of wealth the decrease of moral 
feeling and moral power.” 

‘“*One recognises with anxious apprehension,’ says another 
writer, ‘‘ that the active interest for natural science and tech- 
nical improvements is not balanced by a deeper concern for the 

* « Zur Ethik und Politik,” p. 62. 


THE MODERN SPIRIT 9 


problems of the mental sciences and the arts, which, in truth, 
can alone beneficially appropriate the achievements of technical 
culture ; that in every department of German life a tendency to 
be satisfied with externals is visible, and the endeavour after 
knowledge and self-realisation is lacking; that we have, indeed, 
made progress in the domain of industry, commerce, and material 
life, but, on the other hand, the old German quality of striving 
after the essence of things, the hidden soul of phenomena, and 
the delight in this endeavour—free from all secondary ends—is 
more and more being lost; that we have lost the old idealism 
and in its place have put phrases and pomposity and high- 
sounding words.” * 

The attractions of a commercial career, offering high rewards 
and great possibilities of material advancement, have exerted a 
strong influence even in bureaucratic circles, from the lower 
grades to the highest. The new economic era has witnessed 
the subversion of the Chinese wall of caste exclusiveness which 
used to surround the official class. The dignity and repute of 
this class continue as before, and there is no lack of applicants 
for admission to its charmed circle, but many of the ablest men 
are no longer found there. It is not that the official is less 
appreciated, less honoured by his Government, or finds a more 
circumscribed sphere of duty than hitherto: the one secret 
of the failure of an official career to attract to the extent it 
used to do is the State’s unwillingness and inability—probably, 
under existing conditions, the latter more than the former—to 
offer material inducements equal to those which are held out 
in private life. Royal orders and decorations are distributed 
even more freely than in the past, and State officials can 
always count on receiving step by step the insignia which 
traditionally belong to their rank, but stars and crosses do not 
keep up the costly establishments which the custom of the age 
requires, and it is a perpetual complaint even in ultra-bureaucratic 
Prussia that the best business men are found not in the State 
service but outside, at the head of industrial, commercial, and 
financial undertakings offering to able directors and adminis- 
trators emoluments beyond the means of the national Treasury. 
When in 1907 the Imperial Government was requested to take 
the initiative in establishing a chemical-technical institute, the 
* +‘ Unser Kaiser und sein Volk,” by a ‘‘ Schwarzseher ” (‘* Pessimist”’), p. 155. 


/ 


10 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Minister of the Interior replied that it would be impossible, 
unless the chemical industry largely supplemented such salaries 
as the Government might be able to pay the necessary staff. 
‘In private undertakings,’ he said, ‘‘ able technicologists and 
chemists receive salaries which we could never offer. I am at 
a great disadvantage that, in spite of all efforts, I am unable 
to secure for the Imperial service conspicuous ability, simply 
because better remuneration is offered elsewhere.”’ 

Now and then outsiders of exceptional ability accept Minis- 
terial positions, but they sacrifice material interests in doing so, 
and it is only because they are independent of salary considera- 
tions that such men elect to change the responsible yet highly 
paid duties of a commercial calling for the equally responsible, 
far more thankless, and generally underpaid duties of an official 
career. On the other hand, a far larger number of men leave 
the State service to take charge of large industrial companies,*or 
enter their directorates, on very remunerative terms. The late 
Dr. Boédiker, the head of the Central Insurance Board, joined 
the firm of Siemens & Halske; ex-Ministers have in recent years 
been attracted to the directorates of another Berlin electrical 
company and of Krupp’s at Essen; other high Government 
officials have joined the Steel Syndicate and the Berlin © 
Tramway Company, and the directorates of the two large 
shipping companies contain men who have or had important 
connections with the Prussian Government and even with 
the Crown. 

To the average Englishman the chief significance of the 
ageressive movement of Germanism in modern times lies 
in the successful claim which the German industrialist 
and merchant have asserted to a large share of the world’s 
trade. Yet those who look deeper will discover other and 
more momentous signs of the new spirit. One of these is 
the growth of what can best be described as a cult of force. 
Here the effect of the three successful wars which Prussia 
waged early in the second half of last century may clearly 
be traced. It is naturally in the political domain that the 
tendency to worship force is specially seen. The course of 
German politics, both domestic: and foreign, during the past 
generation has largely been determined by this spirit, which 
found its completest personification in Prince Bismarck. 


THE MODERN SPIRIT 11 


** Political questions are questions of power,’’ was Bismarck’s 
fixed principle, and he was never wanting in fidelity to it. For 
some of the rougher work which he had to do force was, indeed, 
the only possible instrument, but it was not only in war that he 
applied his favourite specific. 

All Bismarck’s impatience with Sides all his contempt for 
the man of thought and contemplation, and all his rough-riding 
over some of the most treasured traditions of political and 
economic thought were but different expressions of the same 
absorbing belief in the efficacy of resolute action. He has his 
disciples and imitators to-day—men full of the will to follow 
in his footsteps, but lacking the strength and opportunity, mere 
shadows of substance, yet in their weak and ineffectual way 
personifying his influence and perpetuating his spirit and 
tradition. A well-known military politician and ex-Colonial 
Governor frankly stated not long ago: ‘‘ That which is lacking 
in our diplomatists we must make good in brute force,” and 
the sentiment, more mildly expressed, has a considerable vogue 
in the circles which specially cultivate ‘‘real’’ politics. 

‘*Two souls dwell in the German nation,’’ writes Professor 
Paulsen; ‘‘the German nation has been called the nation 
of poets and thinkers, and it may be proud of the name. 
To-day it may again be called the nation of masterful com- 
batants, as which it originally appeared in history.”’* That 
is true, but an addition is needful, for the struggle to which 
Germany has since 1860 devoted its undivided strength is not a 
struggle waged consciously in the name and for the sake of 
civilisation, is not a struggle for intellectual or political ideals, 
or ideals of any kind, but a struggle for sheer mastery in 
the realm of matter and for political ascendancy amongst the 
nations. Yet if Germany should ultimately gain all the material 
success and political power it aspires after, no one will dare 
to say that it will mean more for civilisation and the world than 
the weak and disjointed Germany of a century ago, which gave 
to mankind the Goethe and Schiller, the Kant and Fichte whose 
teachings have for the time been cast aside. 

The effect of this worshipping of material force is seen in 
the elevation of the State to a position of importance which it 
never held before, in the multiplication of its functions and the 

* “Zu Ethik und Politik,” p. 59 


12 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


centralisation of authority, without any corresponding increase of 
national control. To-day everything is expected of the State, 
and in proportion to the expectations built upon it is the power 
with which it is endowed. It is seen pre-eminently in the huge 
army which Germany has created, and which represents the cult 
of force in its most universal form, since the army on its modern 
basis is to all intents and purposes the nation. It is the wish 
for more power which also lies at the root of the agitation for 
a navy which may be a fit complement to the invulnerable land 
force. And yet there is no more pacific nation in Europe than 
the Germans. . No wilful disturbance of the world’s peace need 
be apprehended from them, for the economic conquests upon 
which their mind is set can only be achieved by peaceful 
methods, and this they know far better than some of the rivals 
whose trade they are capturing.* I+ is the desire simply to have, 
rather than to use, these two symbols of force which animates 
the middle and upper classes and makes if so much easier 
for the modern Ministers of War and the Admiralty to carry 
their costly schemes than it was for their predecessors, even when 
the Empire was still in its infancy. The same tendency is seen 
in the bitter struggle of parliamentary parties, in the absence 
of balance and of the spirit of compromise and accommodation 
which they show, and never more than during the late period 
of *‘ Bloc”’ politics. 

It is seen no less in the economic struggle—between capital and 
labour in general, and in a narrower sense between the indus- 
trialists and the agrarians—a struggle probably fiercer than in any 


other country, and likely yet to become more vehement before 


any conciliation of the contending interests will be possible. 
Tf, as John Ruskin has said, a nation’s architecture is an 
expression of its ideals, its soul, it should not surprise us 
that here, too, the cult of force is shown. One of the most 
significant signs of the change of spirit which has come over 
Germany—the North particularly—is the architecture of towns 
rebuilt during the past thirty years. No example is so in- 


* «¢ We, for our part, have naturally to take care to avoid war with England, 
for in the first place war would land us in immeasurable danger, and in the 
second place the methods of peaceable competition have hitherto been ade- 
quate to win—not so much at England’s cost as side by side with it—an 
increasing market for our industry.”’—Dr. Paul Rohrbach, ‘‘ Deutschland unter 
den Weltvélkern,” p. 151, 


THE MODERN SPIRIT 13 


structive as the capital itself. One has only to compare the 
relics of old Berlin—the Berlin of the eighteenth century 
and earlier—with the city which has come into being since - 
1871 in order to understand that influences have been at work 
which have entirely transformed the mind and conceptions of 
the present generation. Everywhere one sees the worship of 
massivity, the striving after crude, imposing effects—in the 
modern monuments, the public buildings, the bridges, and not 
least the cathedral which has arisen upon the site of Schinkel’s 
light and dainty structure. If one is to speak of art in relation 
to these works it is primitive art, wherein form is subordinated to 
size. ‘They impress, indeed, by their mass and dimensions, and 
by the suggestion of power which they convey, but they are 
without imagination—they are body without soul—and create in 
the beholder a sense of unrest and oppression. It is significant 
that while the statue of Charlemagne before the Rathaus of 
Aix-la-Chapelle is a finely-modelled life-size figure, the statue 
which Hamburg has erected to Bismarck is a monstrous structure, 
more like a lighthouse than a monument. 

It is not merely in the great public memorials, however, that 
the modern spirit of force is incorporated ; the same thing may 
be seen in domestic architecture. The medieval German dwell- 
ing-house was a picturesque structure of brick and timber, with 
romantic niches and corner windows, with carved woodwork, 
diamond windows, projecting gables, and high-pitched roofs. 
It was not convenient as modern ideas go, and its hygienic 
arrangements were seldom perfect, but it fitted in with an age when 
life had still its poetry and when people did not hurry, and it was 
often a thing of beauty and delight. One need only compare 
a Brunswick house in the Altstadtmarkt with a modern Berlin 
barrack-house, with its six stories and basement and its fifty 
dwellings crowded round a dark courtyard, in order to understand 
how different is the new spirit from the old, and wherein this 
new spirit consists.* Any one who has studied the singularly 

* «Tn the eighteenth century,’’ writes W. H. Riehl, ‘‘ every German (royal) 
residential town wished to be a Versailles; now every such town wishes to be a 
Paris or London. Even the smallest of towns tries at least to ape the cities, 
just as every burgher tries to ape the gentleman. These big and little ‘large 
towns,’ in which every peculiarity of German urban life is dying out, are the 
hydrocephaloids of modern civilisation, and hydrocephalus, it is well known, 


not infrequently indicates an immature and extremely excited mental life.’’— 
*¢ Stadt und Land,”’ p. 56. 


14 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


interesting and perfectly governed city on the Spree from this 
standpoint will understand what a recent German writer means 
when he says, ‘‘ We have buildings dedicated to the noblest and 
highest functions—theatres, schools, parliaments; and yet they 
proclaim nothing of the wonderful mysteries of the German soul, 
nothing of our stock’s proud consciousness of mastery, nothing 
of our longing, our faith, our achievement. Nay, they hardly 
speak of the purpose for which they exist.’’ * ‘ 

There is, indeed, a large element of Romanism in modern 
Germany, in its megalomania, its exaltation of machinery and 
systems, its fondness of massiveness, its restless hankering after 
great effects, and all these characteristics are summarised in the 
phrase ‘‘ force-worship.”” Wherever one looks in Germany at the 
- present day one sees the assertion, on a grandiose scale, of an 
endeavour after sheer mastery—in the struggle with natural 
forces which has been carried on with such wonderful persever- 
ance and deserved success, in the strengthening of the Imperial- 
istic spirit, in the irresistible advance of industry and commerce, 
in the striving after an inviolable military power, in the eager 
and jealous glances which are now being turned to the sea. In 
all these things the underlying thought is the thought of subdual, 
and subdual is the spirit of modern Germany, now in the first 
blush of a new life, its capacities still but partially developed, its 
resources but partially discovered. 

Yet, for all this, it is questionable whether unified Germany 
counts as much to-day as an intellectual and moral agent in the 
world as when it was little better than a geographical expression, 
and the reason is that for the present its strength is not the 
strength of a nation that lives by and for ideals. Germany 
has at command an apparently inexhaustible reserve of physical 
and material force, but the real influence and power which it 
exerts is disproportionately small. The history of civilisation is 
full of proofs that the two things are not synonymous. A 
nation’s mere force is on ultimate analysis its sum of brute 
strength. This force may, indeed, go with intrinsic power, yet 
such power can never permanently depend on force, and the test 
is easy to apply—what remains of influence when the force is 
removed? Rome ruled by force, and when the legions went 
Rome went too. Greece lacked Rome’s material force, but by 


* G. Fuchs, ‘ Der Kaiser und die Zukunft des deutschen Volkes,” p. 19. 


THE MODERN SPIRIT 15 


power of intellect and ideals it ruled where the legions were 
impotent, and Rome itself passed beneath its sway. 

The analogy seems to apply with singular appositeness to 
Germany as we see it to-day. Half a century ago it might have 
seemed as though it had still been open to Germany to choose 
whether it would play the part of a Greece or a Rome in modern 
civilisation. For the present the assertion of modern Germanism 
is the assertion of material force, and it remains yet to be seen 
whether behind that assertion of force there is a spiritual influence 
that will permeate society and so become a permanent factor in 
civilisation. We know what old Germany gave to the world, 
and for the gift the world will ever be grateful: we do not know 
what modern Germany, the Germany of the overflowing barns 
and the full argosies, has to offer beyond its materialistic science 
and its merchandise, or whether the later gift will be of a kind 
to call for either thankfulness or admiration. ‘‘Is there a 
German culture to-day ?”’ asks a recent writer. ‘‘ We Germans 
are able to perfect all works of civilising power as well and indeed 
better than the best in other nations. Yet nothing that the 
heroes of labour execute goes beyond our own border or even is 
elevated at home as a symbol of German strength, German love, 
German pride, German beauty—as if, indeed, we were poor in 
strength, love, pride, and beauty!” * 

If what has been said correctly describes the influences which 
to-day are contending for, if they“have not already obtained, 
ascendancy in Germany, light will be thrown on phases of 
German life and character which otherwise might seem difficult 
to understand. It is the domination of the force-cult which 
explains why Germany, which succeeds so brilliantly in governing 
material forces, fails lamentably in governing spiritual forces. 
So far as command over matter goes, the German is not merely 
good, but unapproachable. Any work, any function that can be 
performed by system, he will perform as no other man on earth. 
His machinery will not always be the best, but in its own way it 
will work to perfection and the finished product will be the best 
of its kind—that is, the best that such machinery can produce. 
When, however, it comes to working with human material the 
German system breaks down, for here machine work is of little 
value. That is why Germany, which excels so conspicuously in 

* G. Fuchs, ‘* Der Kaiser und die Zukunft des deutschen Volkes,” p. 17. 


16 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


town government, does not succeed in the government of men. 
That is why the German systems of education, which are incom- 
parable so far as their purpose is the production of scholars and 
teachers, or of officials and functionaries, to move the cranks, 
turn the screws, gear the pulleys, and oil the wheels of the com- 
plicated national machinery, are far from being equally successful 
in the making of character and individuality. And Germany 
knows this—that is, the Germany which does not work the 
machinery, but submits to its pressure, or looks on while others 
submit. Hence the discontent of the enlightened classes with 
the political laws under which they live—a discontent often 
vague and indefinite, the discontent of men who do not know 
clearly what is wrong or what they want, but feel that a free 
play is denied them which belongs to the dignity and worth 
and essence of human personality. 

No one who genuinely admires the best in the German 
character, and who wishes well to the German people, will 
seek to minimise the extent of the loss which would appear 
to have befallen the old national ideals owing to increasing 
absorption in material pursuits. It may, indeed, prove that 
the present temper of German thought is only a stage in a 
new order of development, and there is some justification for 
this hope in the fact that Germany’s faults are in the main 
the faults of youth. For the nation is still essentially young 
—younger far than it likes to be thought. ‘‘ The German 
people to-day,” said truly a representative of one of the 
universities at the 1907 meeting of the Evangelical Social 
Congress, ‘‘is more juvenile than the other civilised 
nations of Europe.” The things which most strongly impress 
observers from countries of older civilisation as_ specially 
characteristic of modern Germany, and not least the prevail- 
ing political ideas and institutions, nearly all suggest youth, im- 
maturity, and undevelopment, and in that fact lies hope for the 
future. 


CHAPTER II 


TRIPARTITE GERMANY 


The danger of generalising about Germany—A threefold division of the country 
—Economic and political contrasts thus brought to light—Characteristics 
of North and South—West and East Prussia contrasted—The West the 
centre of the great industries—The incidence of population—The large 
estates of the East—Effect of the manorial system—Backwardness of 
the Eastern provinces, 


N few things is it possible to generalise in judging Germany, 

and those only will generalise who little know, and who 
still less understand, the country and its people. Ifa German 
were asked to describe the life and characteristics of his 
countrymen, he would probably insist that not one book but 
twenty-six would be necessary, if the peculiarities of each 
State were to receive due consideration. One may arrive at 
many tolerably safe judgments without resort to specialisa- 
tion so exhaustive as that, yet in forming all these judgments 
the warning will still need to be borne in mind, that 
breadth of generalisation is almost invariably at the expense 
of exactitude, and that rashness is never more dangerous 
and more mischievous than when exercised in the field of 
ethnological study. 

In this case the pitfalls in the way of the unwary are multiplied 
owing to the fact that Germany implies not one people but 
many peoples, with different cultures and different systems of 
political and social institutions. One has only to consider the 
geographical features of the country, its political history, the 
variety of its races, and the diversity of its intellectual and 
economic life in order to understand the difficulty of forming 
conclusions capable of wide application. 


3 


17 


18 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Nevertheless, there is a certain division of the country which, 
while not by any means fundamental, may afford a basis for 
definite if guarded generalisation, and at the same time for useful 
comparisons and contrasts. To understand something of the 
variety of German life and thought one cannot do better 
than begin by dividing the country, like ‘“‘all Gaul” of 
old, into three parts. The division will be faulty and inade- 
quate, yet it will serve to localise conspicuous differences 
of which it is necessary to take careful account if one’s esti- 
mates of Germany and the Germans are to have any value 
whatever. 

And the first division would be formed by a line running from 
West to East, along the frontiers of Lorraine, Baden, Bavaria, 
and Saxony, and forming thus a Northern and a Southern 
Germany. A line which followed these territorial and political 
boundaries would apportion to the North the whole of Prussia 
from the Rhine Province, adjacent to France and Belgium, to 
the frontier of Russian Poland in the East, with the two 
Mecklenburgs, Oldenburg, and Brunswick. To the Southern 
territory would fall, besides the annexed provinces, the three 
kingdoms of Saxony, Bavaria, and Wurtemberg and the Grand- 
duchy of Baden—leaving the Thuringian States as a central 
zone—a territory whose inhabitants differ in race, yet one 
which, on the whole, offers greater unity of character within 
itself than it shares with the strong and assertive monarchy 
in the North. 

The second line would be perpendicular and would dissect 
Prussia itself, and following common usage it will be convenient ~ 
to accept the division into a West and an East Elbe area. To 
the former we should apportion, chiefly, the provinces of Hanover, 
Hesse-Nassau, Rhineland, and Westphalia; to the latter the 
low-lying provinces of agricultural Prussia and the two Meck- 
lenburgs, which together may be termed the corn zone of 
the Empire, inasmuch as this East Elbe area furnishes more 
than two-thirds of the country’s entire production of wheat 
and rye. 

Such a threefold division as this, though, or course, open 
to objection from many standpoints, does yet bring into relief 
striking similarities and diversities of character and interests, 
and will facilitate conclusions of far-reaching significance. 


TRIPARTITE GERMANY 19 


In the first place our lateral boundary line will be found 
to connote a broad political division of the German people. 
In the North, excepting notably the enclaves of Hamburg 
and Bremen, lies the centre of the great Conservative forces and 
influences which have played so large a part in moulding 
German history, and which continue to-day to determine the 
main tendencies of domestic policy. 

When the average Englishman speaks of Germany, he really 
means Prussia, and consciously or not he ignores the fact that 
in but few things can Prussia be regarded as typical and re- 
presentative of the whole Empire.* He reads of the Prussian 
constitution, with its ‘‘three class” system of election, its 
primary and secondary voters, its shadow of popular representa- 
tion, and its ineffectual legislative assemblies, and probably does 
not know that the constitutions of the Southern States are 
altogether more modern and realise in far greater fulness the 
representative principle. Hereads of Prussia’s scientifically rigid 
bureaucratic system, that works with the inevitableness of a 
natural law, and concludes that the whole Empire groans under the 
_ pressure of officialism. He knows that much Prussian legislation 
is, according to his ideas, marked by an uncompromising spirit 
of reaction, and forgets that Prussia’s Education Laws, Anti- 
Coalition Laws, and Polish Colonisation Laws, upon which he 
as likely as not bases his judgment, would hardly at any time 
within the last half century have been proposed in any other 
German State. It is a remarkable fact that Prussia, in material 
things the most wealthy and most progressive State in the 
Empire, in internal administration the most capable, in mili- 
tary discipline the most efficient, is in political thought and 
institutions far behind the smaller States in the South. 

In this respect there is, indeed, between North and South 
just the same difference which exists between the constitutions 
of the two halves of the Empire and the spirit in which these 
constitutions were originally conceded. Even to-day, after over 
half a century of parliamentary government, the party of royal 
autocracy in Prussia—and it is a large and powerful one—is 
never weary of reminding the country that the constitution 
under which it is governed owes none of its authority to 
popular assent, but was “‘ octroiert’”—that is to say, wag 


* This is, however, no less true of the average Prussian. 
~*~ 
% 


ose Si ao 


20 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


voluntarily granted by the Crown, as something which it was 
the Crown’s absolute right to give or withhold at will. That 
fact, to understand and allow for which is essential if Prussian 
political life is to be fairly judged, neither sovereign nor people 
has ever forgotten: to the one it is a safeguard of monarchical 
prerogatives, to the other it is a perpetual reminder that all the 
political rights it enjoys had their origin in royal grace. The 
kings of Prussia have never received anything from the people, 
they have always given; prior to 1851 no charters, no laws, no 
declarations of rights ever limited the sovereign’s power or 
formally determined the relationships of the ruler and the ruled. 
And because the Prussian constitution came into existence by 
the royal will, its provisions are rigid and inelastic ; what they 
meant fifty-seven years ago, exactly that, and nothing more, they 
mean to-day. The Crown conceded so much of its hitherto 
unrestricted right, the people acquired this fraction of sur- 
rendered royal right; and each party to the contract has 
jealously guarded the readjusted relationships ever since: 
the one always fearing lest more should be demanded, the 
other always apprehensive lest the little given should be 
recalled. 

Yet one important admission must be made: just as the old 
Conservative party, led by Prince Bismarck, was opposed to the 
granting of parliamentary government early in the fifties, and 
accepted it against its will, so the modern Conservative party 
sympathises far more with the Crown than with the people.” 

In the official programme of the party, which as a practical 
political document may be said to represent the ideals of Con- 
- servatism in their least uncompromising form, one may to-day 
read :—‘‘ It is our desire to see the monarchy by the grace of 
God preserved unimpaired, and while upholding legally assured 
civil liberty for all and an effective participation of the nation 
in legislation, we are antagonistic to every attempt to limit the 
monarchy in favour of a Parliamentary régime.” The more 
liberal spirit that prevails in the Southern States will be seen 

* Speaking in the Reichstag on February 5, 1908, a Prussian military deputy 
well illustrated this widespread sentiment: ‘*I have,” he said, ‘for a long time 
had the honour to be a member of this House, and I know that the Reichstag 
is necessary, yet as an officer I was not convinced of the necessity for its exis- 
tence. As a lieutenant it seemed to me marvellous that four hundred 


gentlemen should feel themselves called upon to desire to co-operate in the 
government of the country with my old King and his great Chancellor.” 


TRIPARTITE GERMANY 21 


when present-day constitutional movements in Germany are 
reviewed. 

Not only in its prevailing political spirit, however, but in its 
entire culture, the North differs greatly from the South. In the 
far North and East especially there is a hardness and austerity 
of character which is in strong contrast to the greater urbanity of 
the South. . Any one who knows the German people may satisfy 
himself of this contrast by the application of a very simple test. 
There is a fundamental distinction in German character which 
divides the whole race as by an inviolable line: Germans are 
*“gemutlich’’ or they are not ‘‘ gemutlich.” If one can at all 
define the word ‘‘ Gemutlichkeit,”’ it is the mood or disposition 
of the good-natured, comfortable, easy-going soul that can enter 
wholeheartedly into the simpler and primary joys of life. When 
Faust in Goethe’s poem ‘‘ sat down contented’ as he watched 
the village festival, it was the ‘‘ Gemutlichkeit”’ of the scene 
that enchanted him. Now no one would ever imagine a North 
German to be ‘‘ gemutlich,” and no one would ever imagine a 
South German to be anything else. 

Only the lower Rhine country differs from the stern temper of 
the North. There easier conditions of life—longer summers, 
milder winters, more sun, less working against Nature and more 
working with her—have created a lighter, more gracious spirit. 
Yet allowance must also be made for the fact that the culture 
of the West has been strongly influenced by Roman and later 
by Gallic influences. Throughout the whole of Western 
Germany, from North to South, a strong spirit of liberalism 
both in politics and religion prevails, as a result of its contact 
with France and French thought. 

On the other hand, the North and East have developed to a 
great degree on independent lines, receiving little from the 
outside. It is not too much to say that the culture of the far 
North and East of Prussia is a local, provincial culture, with 
which the intellectual and political life of the nation as a whole 
has little in common. A native and defender of the Prussian 
East, Herr Evert,* recently claimed that ‘‘if the East be con- 
sidered without prejudice it must be acknowledged that not only 
in the military and political but in the intellectual sphere it has, 
considering the youth of its civilisation, done notable work for the 

* «Der deutsche Osten und seine Landwirthschafi,”’ p. 3. 


22 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


good of the community at large,”’ and he advanced in proof the 
East Prussian origin of Lessing, Kant, Herder, and Copernicus. 
That the landed families of the Kast have furnished the army 
with many of its best officers, and still form a choice recruiting 
ground for the mess-room, must be cordially conceded. The 
rest of the claim is more disputable, and the illustrations are 
especially unfortunate, for Lessing was born in the South of 
Prussia, Kant was of Scottish descent, Herder was of Slav 
ancestry, and philosophised and passed most of his life in South 
Germany, and Copernicus was of Hungarian parentage. 

Altogether social life is benigner in the South than the North ; 
there is less strenuousness, and as a consequence more humanity 
in the Southerner ; he may value time less, but his life probably 
yields him more satisfaction; social conditions do not offer the 
strong contrasts which are seen in the North, and as a con- 
sequence the relationship between classes and between individuals 
is a less formal and a more genial one. How the contrast appears 
to a politician may be judged from the following passage which 
recently appeared in a North German newspaper :— 

‘* Class antagonisms were never so extreme and bitter in the 
South as in the North. In the South people were always 
nearer in social condition and in intercourse. This gave to 
the entire politics of the South a more amiable and more 
philistine tone. The laws were freer. The laws of association 
and public meeting especially were informed by a singularly 
attractive liberalism. The Southerner felt very superior to the 
Northerner, just as many an English workman still feels superior 
to his Continental colleagues when he says that ‘ Socialism may 
be very well for the poor beggars across the Channel, but we 
have ‘‘a free country,’’ and we have no need of Socialism.’ 
Bavaria has a better franchise law than Prussia and Saxony, and 
Wurtemberg has a better law of coalition.”’ 
~ But the second division, that of the Northern Kingdom 
itself, brings to light contrasts no less radical. Here the 
contrasts are economic as well as political. West of the Elbe 
lies the cradle and home of German industry. Only Saxony 
surpasses, and that but slightly, the populous districts of Rhine- 
land and Westphalia in industrial and commercial activity. With 
27 per cent. of the population of Prussia, these two provinces 
had in 1905 40 per cent. of its ‘‘ industrial ’’ population, @.¢., the 


TRIPARTITE GERMANY 23 


workpeople employed in factories and workshops liable to in- 
spection.* In Saxony 14°3 per cent. of the population were in 
1905 industrial workpeople as thus defined; in the Prussian 
provinces of Rhineland and Westphalia the proportion was 
14:0 per cent. Dusseldorf, Essen, Dortmund, Oberhausen, 
Gelsenkirchen: either of these towns might be regarded as a 
microcosm of modern industrial Germany. Within the two 
provinces Rhineland and Westphalia are found at their busiest 
most of the industries to which the country owes its modern 
wealth and material advancement. It was when visiting West- 
phalia in 1907 that the German Emperor said, with pardonable 
enthusiasm: ‘“‘In the bosom of your hills are hidden the 
treasures which, brought to light by the brave miner’s busy 
hands, promote the activity of industry, an industry—the pride 
of our nation—wonderful in its development, the envy of the 
whole world.” + 

Dortmund is the centre of coalfields which furnish more than 
half the country’s entire coal production; nowhere in Germany 
are the iron, steel, and engineering trades more progressive or 
more highly developed than in the northern part of the Rhine 
province ; while towns like Barmen, Elberfeld, Munchen-Glad- 
bach, Bielefeld, and Crefeld are great names in the textile 
trades. Glass and chemicals belong also to the staple products 
of this hustling region, which may be regarded as in a peculiar 
sense the workshop of Germany. Typical of the whole is the 
town of Essen. It is, of course, dominated by one powerful 
interest, yet its all-round industrial character is shown by the 
fact that in the district served by the Essen Chamber of 
Commerce there were recently 1,217 separate undertakings 


J employing 87,200 workpeople (of which 1,198, with 54,000 


workpeople, were situated within the municipal area), including 
175 mineral, iron, steel and rolling works, 85 metal working 
undertakings, 107 machine, tool, instrument, and apparatus 
works, 22 chemical works, 16 oil and colour works, 20 textile 
factories, 6 paper and leather works, 77 works in the wood 
trade, 888 in the food, drink, and tobacco trades, and 319 in 
the clothing trades. 

Kast of the Elbe, on-the other hand, lies the great granary 


* Hence the handicrafts and the building trades are to a large extent 
excluded. 
+ Speech at Miinster, September, 1907. 


24 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


not only of Prussia, but of the Empire. To the South, in the 
province of Silesia, which Frederick the Great added to his 
Brandenburg Marches in the middle of the eighteenth century, 
the coal and iron trades, and in a less degree the textile trades, 
afford a large population, to a great extent Slav, its principal 
source of employment, and there are industrial outposts like 
Berlin, Hanover, Magdeburg, Halle, &c., but in the main 
Prussia east of the Elbe is an agricultural region, given up to 
the growing of corn, and in some districts of the sugar beet, 
and the exclusiveness of its pastoral industry increases the 
nearer one comes to the Russian frontier. 

How dependent upon agriculture is a large part of the East 
may be judged from the fact that in many of the Government 
districts from 50 to 75 per cent. of the population were found in 
1895 to be directly engaged in pastoral pursuits—66 per. cent. 
in the Bromberg district, 69 per cent. in that of Posen, 71 per 
cent. in that of Koslin, 72 per cent. in that of Marienwerder, 
and 76 per cent. in that of Gumbinnen ; while the proportion for 
Prussia West of the Elbe was between 40 and 50 per cent., yet 
only between 30 and 40 per cent. in seven Government districts, 
and as little as 28 per cent. in the district of Cologne, 16 per 
cent. in that of Arnsberg, and 14 per cent. in that of Dusseldorf. 
Since 1895 the growth of population has further accentuated the 
difference, for the lion’s share of the increase has fallen to the 
towns of the West with rapidly expanding industries. 

The national occupation census of 1895 showed that the 
following percentages of the entire population in the Eastern 
and Western portions of the kingdom respectively were engaged 
in industry :— 


| ; Engaged in Industry. 
Provinces. Population in 1895. 


Number. Percentage. 
Easr, 
East Prussia kina eae 2,006,689 178,080 88 
West Prussia eee dee 1,494,385 152,694 10°2 
Posen re Liga ah 1,828,633 173,138 95 
Pomerania ... ane ed 1,574,147 207,064 pay 
WEstT. 
Hanover... eta ee 2,422,020 418,837 17:2 
Westphalia ... aul we 2,701,420 573,813 21:2 
Hesse-Nassau ous hie 1,756,802 344,502 19°6 


Rhineland ... nine das 5,106,002 1,173,025 229 


TRIPARTITE GERMANY 25 


The following enumeration of industrial workpeople under 
factory inspection as above defined relates to 1905, and brings 
out the contrast between the East and West of Prussia with 
equal clearness :— 





— 


Number of Industrial Percentage of 


: Population in : ve 
Provinces. 1905. hahicg tana Retest the Whole. 

Hast. 
East Prussia ... “rs 2,030,176 46,623 2°3 
West Prussia... dea 1,641,746 61,772 3°7 
Posen ... tbe ary 1,986,637 50,168 2°5 
Pomerania ... van 1,684,326 71,412 4-2 

WEsT. 

Hanover ee bib 2,759,544 196,720 ri 
Westphalia 3,618,090 eneaeciaiet 16:3 
74 Ba abe Mining | 269,711 
Hesse-Nassau : 2,070,052 145,885 7:0 

; 7h 701,194 : 
Rhineland ... aap 6,436,337 Mining | j00198+ 12:1 


_ From this comparison Silesia has been omitted, inasmuch as 

the industrial districts of the south of that province counter- 
balance the agricultural districts elsewhere. In 1895 18°9 per 
cent. of the population of this province were engaged in 
industry, and in 1905 its factory and mining population formed 
10°1 per cent. of the whole. 

In religion there is not the same cleavage between East and 
West, for although in the centre of the kingdom Roman 
Catholicism embraces less than 10-per cent. of the inhabitants, 
both in the extreme West and the extreme East it is the faith of 
the large majority of the indigenous population, with the result 
that the Roman Catholics of Prussia form more than a third of 
the whole population. Taking the provinces individually, the 
principal confessions were represented as follows at the census 
of December 1, 1905 :— 


Provinces with a Protestant Majority—Percentage of Population. 


Provinces. Protestant. | Roman Catholic.| Other Christians.| Jews. 
Brandenburg ... 91°68 6°53 0°61 1:15 
Pomerania ... dae 95°98 2°98 0°47 0°57 
Schleswig-Holstein .. 96°69 2°74 0:32 0:22 
Saxony 91°64 775 0°33 0:27 
East Prussia . 84°75 13°70 0°88 0°67 
Berlin (Urban Ciele) 83°09 10°98 0:94 4°85 
Hanover 85°59 13°46 0°37 0°57 
Hesse-Nassau 68°60 28°30 0°65 2°42 





26 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Provinces with a Roman Catholic Majority—Percentage of Population. 





Provinces. Protestant. | Roman Catholic. | Other Christians.| Jews. 
Posen ... Ke He 80°47 67°85 0°15 1°53 
Rhineland ... see 29°17 69°48 0°47 0:86 
Westphalia ... APS 47°91 51:0 0°51 0°57 
Silesia Gee 5% 42°90 55°95 0-20 0°95 
West Prussia... $y 46°58 51°44 0:99 0:98 


Hohenzollern* “ 4°45 94°86 0:00 0°69 





This economic differentiation of the two halves of the Prussian 
monarchy is strikingly reflected in the incidence of population 
and the distribution of the larger towns. In general the Eastern 
Provinces are regions of far distances and few inhabitants. Of 
the 28 ‘‘large towns” of Prussia—that is, towns with over 
100,000 inhabitants—nine are found in the four Western 
Provinces, viz., Aix-la-Chapelle, Bochum, Dortmund, Cologne, 
Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Elberfeld, Essen, and Gelsenkirchen, and 
only three in the five Eastern Provinces, viz., Posen, Danzig, 
and Konigsberg, of which two are seaports, while the remain- 
ing sixteen are scattered and isolated in the North, South, and 
Centre, like Altona, Breslau, and Berlin respectively. Even of 
towns with over 10,000 inhabitants the three Eastern Provinces 
of Posen, West Prussia, and East Prussia, with a combined 
area of 23,204,272 acres, have only 31, while the three Western 
Provinces of Rhineland, Westphalia, and Hesse-Nassau, with 
two-thirds that area, viz., 15,727,545 acres, have 101. 

Not only so, but population has for many years increased far 
more rapidly in the West than the East, as the following figures © 
show :— ! 

Three Western Provinces. 


Increase or Decrease, Per Cent. 


1890 tio 1895. | 1895 to 1900. | 1900 tio 1905. | 1867 to 1905. 


Rhineland ... eile -. | - 8:40 +12°80 +11°75 + 86°27. 
Westphalia ... sus eee | 11°23 +18°0 +13°50 +111-:87 
Hesse-Nassau nee iz + 5°55 + 8:04 + 9:07 + 50°03 


Three Eastern Provinces. 


East Prussia... pe eas + 2°45 | - 0°50 + 1°68 + 12°28 
West Prussia ose cee | f 4°23 4:64 + 4:99 + 27°98 
Posen... ae Sse ee | + 4:40 i + 3°21 + 5:27 + 29°23 














wi Government district, formed of the two little principalities Hohenzollern- 
Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Siegmaringen, with an aggregate population in 
1905 of 68,282. 


TRIPARTITE GERMANY 27 


The disparity is brought out still more clearly when Govern- 
ment districts are compared. Thus, in the East the population 
of the Government district of Posen is equal to 0°28 inhabitant 
per acre; that of the Government district of Bromberg to 
0°24 person per acre; that of the Government district of 
Gumbinnen to 0°22 person per acre; that of the Government 
district of Allenstein to 0°18 person per acre; and that of the 
Government district of Marienwerder to 0°21 person per acre. 
On the other hand, in the West the Government district of Dissel- 
dorf has a population of 2°2 persons per acre, and the Govern- 
_ ment districts of Arnsberg and Cologne have 1°1 person per acre. 

While the scantier population of the Eastern Provinces is in 
the main due to the comparative absence of industries, two 
secondary causes are the large migration of labour to the iron 
and coal districts of the West which has taken place during the 
past twenty years and a relatively high death-rate, for which 
a high rate of births does not compensate. 

The depletion of the rural districts is a growing evil, for it 
implies the gradual starving of agriculture for want of labour. 
The East Prussian Chamber of Agriculture recently investigated 
the whereabouts of children who had left the rural schools of 
that province in the years-1895 and 1900. The homes of 
23,000 children who left school in the former year were traced, 
and it was found that three-fifths of them had left their native 
districts and agriculture as well. More than one-quarter had 
left the province altogether and had found work in the industrial 
districts of West Germany, while others had gone to the larger 
towns of the province. Even of those who remained in the 
smaller places a considerable proportion had entered other 
occupations. Of the children who left school in 1900 the 
whereabouts and occupations of 32,000, or 91°7 per cent., were 
discovered. ‘T'wo-fifths were found to have become agricultural 
labourers, one-fifth had migrated to West Germany, and the rest 
had gone to the towns of the province. The loss to the agricul- 
ture of the Province of East Prussia alone by migration in 
1900 was estimated at 2,450 families, containing 10,270 young 
unmarried workers. | 

Compared with the steady migration from the rural districts, 
the higher mortality of the East is a minor cause of the growing 
disparity in population of the two parts of the monarchy, though 


28 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


itis otherwise significant. The rate of mortality in the Province 
of East Prussia was 23°3 per thousand of the population in 1905, 
against 22°2 per thousand in 1904, and 24°7 per thousand in 
1908 ; in the Province of West Prussia it was 24°4, 22°3, and 
23°4 per thousand respectively ; and in the Province of Posen it 
was 23, 21°6, and 23'4 per thousand. On the other hand, the 
rate in the Province of Rhineland was 19°3 per thousand in 
1905, 19°5 in 1904, and 20 in 1903; that in Westphalia 18°6, 
20, and 19°6 per thousand respectively; and that in Hesse- 
Nassau 17°8, 17°6, and 18°6 per thousand. Further, of the 
twelve Government districts of Prussia with a birth-rate in 1905 
exceeding 84°8 per thousand of the population, which was the 
average for the entire State, five were in the three Eastern 
Provinces, while of the twenty-seven Government districts with 
a birth-rate below 34°'8 per thousand of the population, only two 
were in those provinces. On the other hand, five of the ten 
Government districts in the three Western industrial provinces 
have a higher birth-rate and five a lower than that of the whole 
kingdom. 

A further fundamental difference between East and West lies 
in the fact that the Eastern Provinces are overwhelmingly given 
up to large estates, while the Western Provinces, in so far as an 
agricultural character belongs to them, are the special home of 
the small owner and tenant. In 1895 estates exceeding 250 
acres in extent accounted for about 24 per cent. of all the 
cultivable area of Germany, but in Prussia for 31 per cent., and 
in the Provinces of Pomerania and Posen for no less than 55 
and 52 per cent. respectively, while in the Province of West 
Prussia the percentage was 44, and in that of Kast Prussia 40. 
While there were in the Western Provinces in that year 913 
‘large’ estates (of over 250 acres), with an average area of | 
845 acres, there were 8,365 such estates in the East, with 
an average area of 1,182 acres. The 2,793 ‘‘large”’ estates 
in Pomerania had an average area of 1,380 acres. On the other 
hand, while the three Eastern Provinces, with an aggregate area 
of 23,204,000 acres, had 73,188 ‘“‘small’’ peasant holdings of 
from 5 to 123 acres in extent, and 106,524 ‘‘ medium ”’ holdings 
of from 124 to 50 acres, the three Western Provinces, with an 
area a third less in extent, viz., 15,728,000 acres, had 108,896 
‘‘ small ’’ holdings and 104,758 holdings of ‘‘ medium ”’ size. 


TRIPARTITE GERMANY 29 


The difference lies in the mode of cultivation, arable farming 
being predominant in the East and grazing in the West. The 
official enumeration of cattle in December, 1904, showed that 
there were in the Eastern Provinces of East Prussia, West 
Prussia, and Posen 41°4, 38°1, and 41°9 cattle respectively per 
square kilometre of agricultural surface, while the ratios for the 
three Western Provinces of Rhineland, Westphalia, and Hesse- 
Nassau were 71°2, 54°5, and 67. The number of pigs per 
square kilometre was 36°7 in East Prussia, 48°9 in West Prussia, 
and 48°6 in Posen, and in the three Western Provinces named 
37°6, 83°4, and 69°9 respectively. 

But, further, the East is the home of the great independent 
manors, which have left an indelible mark on local government, 
and have checked to a serious degree the civic and political 
development of that part of the Prussian monarchy. In the 
Province of East Prussia there are 2,299 manorial districts, in 
the Province of West Prussia 1,256, in the Province of Posen 
1,881, in the Province of Silesia 3,731, and in the Province of 
Pomerania 2,419; while in the West there are only 829 in the 
Province of Hanover, 279 in that of Hesse-Nassau, 24 in that 
of Westphalia, and none in the Rhine Province. 

The effect of the manorial system has been to encourage 
an almost feudal relationship even down to the present day, 
in spite of the reforming influence of the Stein-Hardenberg 
legislation at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Stein 
himself placed on record his sense of the almost hopeless 
backwardness and stagnation which had come over the agri- 
cultural districts of North-east Germany under the domina- 
tion of the great autocratic landowners. Writing on April 22, 
1802, of a visit to Mecklenburg, he says: ‘‘ The appearance of 
the country displeased me as much as the cloudy northern 
climate; great fields, of: which a considerable part lies in 
pasture and fallow, extremely few people, the whole labouring 
class under the pressure of serfdom, the fields attached to single 
farms, seldom well built; in one word, a uniformity, a deadly 
stillness, a want of life and activity diffused over the whole, 
which oppressed and soured me greatly. The abode of the 
Mecklenburg nobleman, who keeps down his peasants instead 
of improving their condition, strikes me as the lair of a wild 
beast, who desolates everything around him and surrounds him- 


30 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


self with the silence of the grave.”” When Stein’s emancipatory 
edict of October 9, 1807, was promulgated, securing to the 
peasants personal liberty and freedom from serfage and servi- 
tudes, many of the landowners, who had a monopoly of the 
official positions, tacitly declined to make it known, and it was 
only slowly that its provisions leaked out. In Silesia there were 
disturbances, and the landowners went so far as to call to their 
aid the French troops still in the province. The Stein-Harden- 
berg laws did, nevertheless, lift the weight of legal serfage from 
the peasantry, though the spirit of feudalism has never entirely 
disappeared, and it is safe to say that it has retarded the great 
landowners themselves quite as much as the dependent peasantry 
and labourers under their influence. 

Dr. F. Mensel, speaking of Friedrich August Ludwig von 
Marwitz, one of Stein’s most resolute opponents, lauded by the 
historian Treitschke as a ‘‘ rough rider ”’ of his time, says: “‘ It is 
unfair to call him and the majority of his class contemporaries 
‘Krautjunker’ (cabbage squires). The nobility of the Mark 
stood between the years 1770 and 1820 upon a higher intellectual 
level than during the succeeding half century.”’ Certainly the 
‘¢ Junkers ”’ have done little to develop the civic and political spirit 
of the East. It is solely owing to them and to the system of 
great estates that down to the year 1892 no part of Germany 
was more backward in local government than the Hast of 
Prussia, whose provinces were then still organised on the 
principles of a law dating from 1856. By the amendment of 
1892, which the large landowners in the Prussian Diet strove 
at every turn to nullify, and voted against as a body on the final 
reading, important reforms were introduced into local govern- 
ment... The property franchise was retained in local elections, 
but its exclusive character was taken away. Yet while the right 
to vote for and be members of local government bodies was given 
to male residents with an income of £83 per annum, the opponents 
of the law secured to the communes the right of withholding the 
franchise from any person not possessed of real estate by the 
simple device of declining to assess him to taxation. The three- 
class system of election applies still, as in the rest of Prussia, 
yet two-thirds of the representatives elected by each group 
of voters must be residents, and the president and the two 
grand-jurymen (Schoffen) must have been born in the parish. 


TRIPARTITE GERMANY 31 


The plan of open voting was retained. Throughout the 
discussion of the Bill the great proprietors strove to preserve 
their old privileged position in the first instance, and as a 
second line of defence to strengthen the position of the large 
peasantry as against the small proprietors. 

The most obsolete feature of Kast Prussian local administra- 
tion is the system of independent manorial jurisdiction, which 
still continues on a large scale. As early as 1850 an attempt 
was made to abolish manorial autonomy throughout the whole of 
Prussia, but the opposition of the great proprietors compelled the 
withdrawal of the Government’s proposals so far as the Eastern 
Provinces were concerned. Owing to the same hostility the law 
of 1892 left most of the manors independent administrative units, 
so that even now self-government in the modern sense does not 
exist in these districts. It is characteristic of the spirit of the 
Kast that until recently a relic of the old custom of servitudes 
remained in its local government law, which empowered the 
council of a rural commune to require its citizens to perform 
‘‘hand and span”’ services in connection with the execution of 
communal works. The aggregate services were estimated in 
money value, and they were allotted according to the local taxes 
paid, though, in practice, performance by deputy was usually 
allowed, or money payment to the communal funds might be 
made instead. 

Many reasons are responsible for the economic and social 
backwardness of the East of the monarchy. One great dis- 
advantage is the condition of isolation created by the great 
size of the estates. The owners and cultivators of these estates 
have for generations been cut off from the thought, the move- 
ment, the manifold stimulating influences of the towns. 
Each has been a little sovereign within his own sphere of 
influence, accustomed to give orders and not to receive them, 
with no one to oppose, contradict, or challenge him, and this un- 
healthy position of social superiority and ascendancy has checked 
intellectual progress and induced a spirit of stagnation in every 
department of life. Moreover, Germanism appropriated the old 
seat of Slav influence between the Vistula and the Elbe within a 
period comparatively modern as counted in the history of civilisa- 
tion, and the terrible devastations wrought in the country, first 
in the Thirty Years’ War, then in the Seven Years’ War of 


32 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Frederick the Great, and finally by the Russians and French at 
the beginning of the nineteenth century, successively checked or 
destroyed the progress that had been slowly and laboriously made. 

The defenders of the East also justifiably plead that their 
climate is inhospitable and their land far less fertile than that of 
the West. The West has on the whole a comparatively mild 
winter—the mean temperature in January being from one to two 
degrees (Celsius) above, zero—and a temperate summer; while 
the East has a severe winter, with a mean temperature in 
January of from one to five degrees (Celsius) under zero, and 
a warmer summer. ‘‘ While in the West,’’ writes Herr Evert, 
‘‘ the average temperature keeps for a long time together below 
freezing-point only in the hilly regions, even in the coldest 
months, in the Kast frost prevails as a rule from the beginning 
or end of December into March; often, indeed, it begins in 
November. While thus in the Rhenish lowlands field work can 
often be continued into December and in part can be resumed in 
February, East of the Elbe one expects work to be interrupted 
from November until April or May by frost, snow, and rain. In 
the extreme North-east the period of vegetation lasts only from 
four to five months.” * 

The effect of unfavourable conditions of soil and climate is 
seen in the less productivity of the country. The average 
yield of rye per hectare (24 acres) in the whole of Prussia for the 
years 1899 to 1906 was about 30 cwts. The yield in the Western 
Provinces ranged from 82 to 86 cwts., but none of the Eastern 
Provinces exceeded 28 ewts., the yield of Posen and Silesia, 
while West Prussia had a yield of 25 ewts., and East 
Prussia one of 27 cwts. The comparative yield of other crops 
on the average of the same years was as follows :— 

Yield in Cwts. per Hectare. 


Summer 
Wheat. Barley. Oats. Potatoes. 





Prussia as a whole... 
Germany as a whole 


East Prussia... 
West Prussia 
Posen... 4 
Silesia 





« “Der Deutsche Osten,” p. 7. 


TRIPARTITE GERMANY 33 


The yield in the Western Provinces ranged from 87 to 444 
ewts. of wheat, 29 to 374 cwts. of summer barley, 324 to 39 
ewts. of oats, and 250 to 2844 cwts. of potatoes. 

The comparative poverty of the East is illustrated by the fact 
that the yield of the land tax per hectare of land is on the whole 
hardly a third that in the West. In the Eastern Provinces there 
are hundreds of parishes and manors whose corn land does not give 
a larger net yield of land tax than one shilling per hectare, or one- 
twentieth the average of the entire State and one-fiftieth that of 
the more favoured districts of the West. The indebtedness of 
the large estates is also great. In 1902 it was estimated that. 
the debt of proprietors liable to more than £3 of land tax 
was on the average of the whole State 26°4 per cent. of their 
capital, but in six Eastern Provinces it was 37°9 per cent., while 
in six Western Provinces it was only 17°3 per cent. 

** For a long time the East has in economic matters been the 
community's ‘child of care,’’’ writes Herr Evert. The rest of 
Prussia knows that to its cost. The Kast seeks for and obtains 
a protection which falls to the agriculture of hardly any other 
European country, yet it does not thrive: the customs duties 
have to be increased every few years for its benefit, special 
legislation is passed in its interest which applies to no other 
German State, yet it suffers from perpetual need. 

As between North and South Germany generally, so between 
West and East Prussia in particular, there is a great gulf fixed 
in political thought. The agricultural districts East of the Elbe 
form the stronghold of Prussian Conservatism, the political 
_ strength of which is enormously increased by the narrow franchise 
and the indirect method upon which the national Parliament is 
elected. 

‘‘ The Prussian Junker represents the most reactionary class in 
the world,’ said a German political leader recently ; ‘‘so long 
as a Junkerdom exists in Germany, and is a leading factor in 
_ politics, there is no possible hope of progress.’’ The sentiment 
is not free from party animus, yet there can be no gainsaying 
the fact that from the beginning of Prussian constitutional life 
the Junker party has, as a whole, acted as a brake upon every 
forward movement. The Conservatism, like the Liberalism, of 
a country like Prussia must inevitably differ both in kind and 


degree from that of countries of free political institutions, in 
4 


34 ‘(THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


which Conservatism and Liberalism are less the negation than 
the correctives one of the other. But the Conservatism of the 
provinces East of the Elbe has a counterpart nowhere else in 
Western Europe, certainly not in Germany. 

The antagonism between the agrarians of the Prussian 
_ country districts and the Liberal parties, whose chief strength 
is in the towns, finds most pointed expression in the perpetual 
conflict on the subject of parliamentary representation. There 
has been no alteration in the representation of the old provinces 
of the kingdom since 1858, or of the new since 1867, though 
since the latter year the population of Prussia has increased from 
twenty-four to thirty-eight millions. The original basis of repre- 
sentation in the Lower House of the Diet was one member 
to every 50,000 inhabitants, which gave an assembly of 433 
members. To-day over 86,000 inhabitants fall on an average 
to one seat, and if that ratio of representation were applied 
there would be a great transference of seats from the rural to 
the urban electoral districts. The metropolis alone would have 
24 seats instead of nine, and many other large towns would 
double and treble their representation, while the agricultural 
districts would lose proportionately. As it is, there is to-day 
one electoral district with 34,000 inhabitants (Hohenzollern) 
and another with 323,000 (Kattowitz). Eight and a quarter 
million inhabitants of the sparsely populated districts elect 
161 deputies, and another eight and a quarter millions in the 
densely populated districts elect only 41. The result of the 
present unequal representation is that an East Prussian or 
Pomeranian peasant, who is not allowed by law to form a 
trade union or hold a public meeting, has many times the 
representative value of a Berlin professor or a Westphalian 
merchant prince. 

The unchanging preponderance of the East Prussian 
country party in the Diet has been detrimental to progress in 
many ways. This party has been behind all the measures 
which have been passed and proposed both in that assembly 
and in the Reichstag for the preferential treatment of agricul- 
ture at the expense of industry. It has opposed scheme after 
scheme for extending—even in the West of the monarchy 
—the system of waterways so essential in a country like 
Germany, with a small seaboard and a large Hinterland, and 


TRIPARTITE GERMANY 35 


in doing this it has candidly admitted that its purpose has 
been to prevent the cheapening of inland transport costs, 
to exclude foreign corn, and to check the advance of in- 
dustry. When at last its opposition has been withdrawn, as 
in 1905, it has been because concessions have been given in 
another direction, and these have generally included the - 
dismissal of an obnoxious Minister. 

The same party is antagonistic to progress in education, and 
fights as vehemently to-day as a generation ago against the 
urgent need for substituting professional school inspectors for the 
clerical inspectors who unselfishly, yet in many cases unsuccess- 
fully, devote their time to this difficult work. It is no exaggera- 
tion of the Junker’s view of primary education to say that if 
he had his way the instruction of the rural classes of North 
and East Prussia would not merely be confined to the most 
rudimentary subjects, but would be mainly directed towards 
checking ambition, whether intellectual or material, and to- 
wards positively unfitting the agricultural labourers’ children 
for a wider life than that in which their fathers have been 
brought up. The schools and educational arrangements of Prussia 
are often held up to the world’s admiration as denoting the 
highest level of excellence hitherto achieved in this sphere. 
In general the praise is fully deserved, and it may be conceded 
that Prussia’s best educational work has not been excelled 
elsewhere. Yet much of this work is neither excellent nor 
good. Many of the schools of rural Prussia, as of Mecklenburg, 
can only be compared with the dame schools which were swept 
away by the Education Act of 1870, or, better still, with the 
Trish schools upon which Mr. Matthew Arnold wrote one of 
his delightfully informal reports. For all the features which 
Arnold noted in the educational arrangements of rural Ireland 
forty years ago are present in many of the villages and manors of 
North Germany to-day—under-staffed classes, inferior, tumble- 
down buildings, deserving yet ill-paid teachers, penurious 
managers who grudge the cost of the scholars’ most meagre 
intellectual equipment and administer enlightenment on 
homeopathic principles. For this the Government cannot be 
blamed ; it does its best for such schools, and would do better if 
there were any effective force behind it, but such a force is lack- 
ing: for the deputies who represent Prussia east of the Elbe in 


36 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


the Diet are contented that things should remain as they are. It 
was his conviction that the Conservatism of rural Prussia is fair | 
neither to the country nor to itself that led Prince Bulow recently 
to urge the country deputies to ‘‘ put their blinkers off’’ and look 
fairly at the course of national events and the hard facts of life. 

If, however, the large proprietors of the East are in general 
characterised by a total lack of appreciation of modern ways and 
a marked imperviousness to the political movements of the 
times, many of them play an invaluable part in the life of the 
country, as administrators, as pioneers in progressive agriculture, 
and within a narrow sphere as disseminators of the newer thoughts 
and impulses current in the West. Their influence is a leayen, 
slow, indeed, of action, yet it will achieve its work in the end. 
It is no paradox to say that nothing would contribute more 
effectually towards the healthy development of the rural East 
than the shattering of that bulwark of political privilege upon 
which it most relies for security. Jor half the deficiencies of 
the landed interest are due to its isolation, and one of the 
causes of this isolation is its privileged political position. De- 
prived of that enervating advantage, and compelled to fight in 
fair and equal contest for whatever influence it could lawfully 
assert, its moral power would be increased and its economic life 
invigorated. 


' CHAPTER II 
THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY 


Economic influence of the French War and the establishment of the Empire— 
Increase of the ‘‘ large’’ towns—The ratio of urban to rural population 
at various dates—Geographical incidence of the growth of population in 
recent years—The migration to the industria] districts—Comparison of 
occupation censuses—Classification of industrial workpeople in 1905— 
Development of the coal, iron, and engineering industries since 1871— 
The shipbuilding industry—The electrical industry—The textile trades— 
The tendency towards industrial concentration—The position of the 
handicrafts and the home industries—State efforts to encourage the 
rural industries. 


ERMANY’S rush forward as an industrial and mercantile 

country may, for practical purposes, be dated from the 
successful issue of the war with France in 1871. That event, 
concurrently with the establishment of the Empire, gave to the 
nation new life, both politically and commercially. For the 
first time the Germans, as a nation, became conscious of 
collective power and of the great possibilities which this power 
placed within their reach. A new youth—that unspeakable 
gift which the gods so rarely bestow upon mortals+was given 
to them, and with all youth’s energy and ardour and audacity 
they plunged at once into a bold competition with neighbours 
of whom they had hitherto stood in a certain awe, and who, 
in truth, for their part, had barely taken their young rival 
seriously. The losses in the war, by wounds and disease, had 
severely drained the manhood of the country; but nature 
speedily made good the hurt, and history repeated the teaching 
which Malthus put into the formula: ‘‘ Wars do not depopulate 


much while industry remains in vigour.” 
37 


38 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Before the life-and-death contest with France, for which the 
Austrian campaign had been a well-considered preparation, 
Germany had laid the foundations of an economic career; and 
that contest fought to its victorious close, the nation at once 
applied itself assiduously to the realisation of its ambition to 
win new laurels on the battlefields of industry. 

Material enterprise of every kind was fertilised by the capital 
which now became loosened, and sought new and larger channels 
of employment. Everywhere a restless spirit of adventure 
asserted itself. Old cities and towns, which had rusticated 
for half a century, sprang forward, as though a vast accumu- 
lated momentum had suddenly been released, and increased 
enormously in population and wealth. 

In 1871 Germany had eight “large’’ towns of over 100,000 
inhabitants; in 1880 the number was 14; in 1890 there were 
26 such towns, yet only seven whose population exceeded a quarter 
of a million; in 1895 the number of ‘‘large”’ towns increased 
to 80, in 1900 it was 38, and in 1905 there were 41 towns with 
over 100,000 inhabitants, of which 11 had over 250,000 in- 
habitants and five had over half a million. In the United 
Kingdom there were, in 1901, 39 towns with a population ex- 
ceeding 100,000, of which ten had over etal 000 inhabitants 
and two had over half a million. 

Of Germany’s ‘“‘large”” towns the metropolis has most in- 
creased since expansion became the universal rule. A hundred 
years ago Berlin was an insignificant town of some 160,000 
inhabitants. Half acentury later its population had not reached 
300,000, and when the Empire was established in 1871 it had 
only just turned 800,000. From that time its growth was 
rapid. In 1875 the population was 968,600, and two years 
later the heart of the Berliner swelled with pride when his 
town became a “ million town.’’ By 1880 the population had 
reached 1,150,000, in 1885 it had grown to 1,815,000, in 
1890 to 1,578,000, in 1895 to 1,773,000, and in 1905 it was 
2,040,000, the increase in ten years having been 21°6 per cent. 

The effect upon the value of land has been magical, but 
also, from the standpoint of the poorer inhabitants, deplorable. 
Rents both in and around the city have become higher than in 
any other part of Germany, and they have created a housing 
problem which becomes more acute every year. 


THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY 89 


This growth of the large towns merely symptomises a revolu- 
tion which has entirely changed the ratio of urban to rural 
population. Heinrich Sohnrey has estimated that the population 
of the Empire has fallen at various periods from 1871 forward 
to towns and rural districts in the following percentages :— 


Distribution of the Population. 


en | I 















Residents in “Large” 












Towns (of over 100,000 4°8 7°2 11:4 13°5 16°18 
inhabitants) 
“Medium” Towns (20,000 ‘ : : d i 
to 100,000 inhabitants) {| 777 2? he (it hd be 22. 
‘“*Small” Towns (5,000 to ; ‘ : ‘ : 
20,000 inhabitants) } 11-2 12-6 11:5 13°6 13-46 
Town Population ... | 23:7 28°7 32:2 37°6 42°26 
Rural Towns (2,000t05,000 : : ‘ ‘ : 
inhabitants 3 12-4 | 127 | 103 | 122 | 12-09 
Rural Communes (under 2 ; : } : 
3,000 inbabitents) 639 | 586 | 57:5 | 50-2 | 45°65 
Rural Population ... | 76:3 57°74 


Thus, during a period of thirty years, the population of the 
“‘large’’ towns increased to the extent of 11°38 per cent. of 
the whole, that of the ‘‘medium”’ towns to the extent of 4°92 
per cent., that of the ‘‘ small’’ towns to the extent of 2°26 per 
cent., making the entire ‘‘town”’ population 18°56 per cent. 
larger than before; while, on the other hand, the “rural 
towns,’ which constitute a sort of neutral borderland 
between town and country, remained nearly stationary, and the 
purely rural population decreased to the extent of 18°25 per 
cent. The total population of the 3,360 urban communes in 
1900 was 30,633,075, and that of the 73,599 rural communes 
was 25,734,103. The present increase of population, which 
amounts to over 800,000 per annum, in the main swells the 
towns, while the rural districts are declining relatively and in 
part absolutely. 


40 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


The great growth of population which has fallen to the past 
half century has naturally taken place in the States and pro- 
vinces which have, during that period, developed the greatest 
industry. In 1855 the States which now form the German 
Empire had a population of 36,114,000, in 1905 their popula- 
tion was 60,641,000, showing an average annual increase of 
1°04 per cent., against 0°96 per cent. during the years 1816 to 
1855. When the States are taken separately, however, great 
disparity will be seen. Thus the population of States with 
large industries has grown as follows :— 





Population in ‘anctiad 
States. ——_ | Increase. Increase 
1855 1905 et eae 

Prussia ... eas ... | 21,320,000 | 37,293,000 | 15,973,000 1°12 
Saxony ... of! ... | 2,039,000 4,509,000 2,470,000 1:60 
Anhalt ay wan ely 168,000 328,000 160,000 1°34 
Brunswick a oes 270,000 486,000 216,000 1:19 
Bremen .., abe one 89,000 263,000 174,000 2:20 
Hamburg ... eth by 244,000 875,000 631,000 2°58 


On the other hand, the population of the States of a decidedly 
agricultural stamp has grown far less rapidly :— | 


Population in 


Annual 

States. ee endl ee eee Increase 

1855. 1905 Por /siene 
Bavaria ... ... «| 4,508,000 | 6,524,000 | 2,016,000 0-74 
Wurtemberg vee --- | 1,670,000 |} 2,302,000 632,000 0°64 
Mecklenburg-Schwerin ... 541,000 625,000 74,000 0:29 
Mecklenburg-Strelitz ... 99,000 103,000 4,000 0-08 


The difference is seen still more plainly if the provinces of 
Prussia be divided into those of a predominantly industrial and 
those of a predominantly agricultural character ;— 


THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY 41 
Industrial (predominantly). 


Population in Annual 


Increase. Increase 
Per Cent. 


Provinces. 





ne ee es ae 


Brandenburg... ee | 1,793,000 | 3,532,000 | 1,739,000 1°36 
Westphalia ©... ...| 1,527,000 | 3,618,000 | 2,091,000 1:74 
Rhineland... nee ... | 3,007,000 | 6,436,000 } 3,429,000 1:53 
Berlin ©.» het oA 461,000 | 2,040,000 | 1,579,000 3:02 


Agricultural (predominantly). 


East and West Prussia .. 2,637,000 | 3,672,000 | 1,035,000 0°66 
Pomerania i ‘ 1,289,000 } 1,684,000 395,000 0°53 
Posen 1,393,000 | 1,987,000 594,000 0°71 











Silesia and Schleswig-Holstein, though on the whole agricul- 
tural provinces, are here disregarded, since the one has in the 
south a large mining and industrial district and the population 
of the other is largely increased by the towns of Altona and 
Kiel, which alone had in 1905 23 per cent. of the total popula- 
_ tion of the province. 

Prussia has also had for many years a large excess of immi- 
grants over emigrants, and here, too, the towns and industrial 
districts have alone gained. Until 1865 Prussia was not able to 
retain its natural yeariy increment of population, for every year 
a considerable number of inhabitants left the country in ex- 
cess of those who came from other States. During recent 
years the reverse has been the case. Between 1895 and 1900 
43,222 persons more entered Prussia from other German States 
and from abroad than left it, and between 1900 and 1905 
96,645 more. 

A gain of population ee immigration has not, however, fallen 
to all the provinces. Between the years 1840 and 1905 the pro- 
vince of Kast Prussia lost no fewer than 633,500 inhabitants by 
excess of emigration over immigration, the province of West Prussia 
lost 518,800, that of Pomerania lost 668,900, that of Posen lost 
790,300, and that of Silesia lost 599,100. Even the kingdom 
of Bavaria lost 699,200 owing to the same cause, and the king- 
dom of Wurtemberg lost 585,800. On the other hand the city 
of Berlin gained during this period over a million inhabitants 
by migration, Hamburg gained 402,000, the province of West- 


42 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


phalia gained 246,100, the province of Rhineland 848,000, and 
the kingdom of Saxony 326,200. 

The following was the effect of this interchange of population 
during the past six quinquennial periods in four of the agricul- 
tural and four of the industrial provinces of Prussia :— 


AVERAGE YEARLY IncrEASE (-++-) on Decrease (—) PER 1,000 or Mzan 
POPULATION OWING TO MIGRATION. 


Agricultural Provinces. 


1875-1880. | 1880-1885. | 1885-1890. | 1890-1895. | 1895-1900. | 1900-1905. 


pre ee ee | ee | eee ee | ee ee | ee | ae 


East Prussia ...| —3°31 | — 8°10 | —13°45 | — 8°84 | —14°65 | —8°81 
West Prussia ...j ~—6°71 | —14:13 | —13°86 | — 9:24 | — 9:15 | —840 
Pomerania eo. | —5°25 | —17°28 | —12°:07 | — 7:04 | — 6°85 | —7-51 
Posen ... eo. | —6°09 | —13°31 | —13°76 | —10°08 | —13°77 | —9°55 


Industrial Provinces, 


Westphalia —2:16 | — 0:01 | + 3°22 | + 2°79 | +12°09 | +3:07 
Rhineland —1:32 | — 0°71 | + 2°07 | + 0°73 | + 6°69 | +3-:99 
Hesse-Nassau ...| —1°16 | — 4°82] — 0°95} — 0°85 | + 1°25 | 43-26 














During the five years 1895 to 1900 nine Prussian provinces 
lost by migration more than they gained by immigration. The 
province of Brandenburg and the metropolis gained by immigra- 
tion during this period 233,980 inhabitants, and the provinces 
of Westphalia, Hesse-Nassau, and Rhineland gained together 
371,150, while the provinces of East and West Prussia, 
Pomerania, Posen, and Silesia lost together 472,649. Almost 
the whole of this migration from the East of the monarchy was 
directed to the industrial and mining districts of the West and 
to the province of Brandenburg, including Berlin. 

It would seem, however, that within Prussia the towns are 
now no longer increasing to the former extent owing to immigra- 
tion. While during the period 1895 to 1900 the excess of 
immigration over migration in the “‘large’’ towns was 426,747, 
equal to 8°5 per cent., these same towns only had an increase 
from this cause of 282,230, or 4'8 per cent., during the following 
five years, though their number grew in the interval from 22 to 
28. The migration during 1895-1900 actually exceeded the — 
immigration in one ‘‘large’’ town, Crefeld, and also in ten of | 
the 76 urban circles, though some of these districts had im- 


THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY 43 


_ portant industries. During the following five years, 1900 to 
1905, 16 urban circles in Prussia had a larger migration than 
immigration. 

Yet a part of this loss to the larger towns is more apparent than 

real. For it is found that where the movement to these towns has 
received a check, the rural districts in the neighbourhood have 
rapidly increased, owing to the improvement of traffic facilities and 
the tendency to remove industrial undertakings into the open 
country. For the present these extra-urban areas are indepen- 
dent, but eventually many of them will no doubt be incorporated 
without necessary alteration of their rural character. At the 
census of 1900 Prussia had 489 rural circles, and 73 of them 
reported an excess of immigration over migration, the aggregate 
increase being 485,509, while during the following five years the 
number of circles which grew from this cause was 80, and their 
total excess of immigration was 480,055, or 55,454 less than 
during the preceding quinqguennium. Many of these rural 
circles had old industries of their own, but in the main their 
expansion was a result of the overflowing of the large adjacent 
towns. 
_ Where an excess of migration took place it was in the main 
confined to the East of the kingdom, a central district in the 
march of Brandenburg, portions of North-west Silesia, and 
the agricultural districts of the West and North-west. 

Still more significant evidence of the economic transition 
through which Germany is passing, changing the centre of 
gravity from the country to the towns, is furnished by the 
occupation censuses of 1882 and 1895.* 

It is estimated that in 1843 the population engaged in 
agriculture, forestry, gardening, and fishing formed 61 per cent. 
of all persons earning a livelihood. When the first great 
occupation census was taken in 1882 it was found that the 
proportion had fallen to 43°4 per cent., and at the next occupa- 
tion census of 1895 a further decline was found to have taken 
place to 37°5 per cent. The percentage of the entire popu- 
Jation actually dependent on agriculture, &c. (dependents 
being here included), declined between 1882 and 1895 from 
42°5 to 35°7 per cent. On the other hand the occupation 


* At the time of writing, the results of the Occupation Census of July, 1907, 
are not available. 


a, 


44 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


census of 1882 showed that 33°7 per cent. of all persons earning 
a livelihood were engaged in industry and mining, and that of 
1895 showed a percentage of 37°4; while during the same period 
the percentage engaged in trade and transport increased from 
8°83 to 10°6. Thus, while between these two enumerations the 
share of agriculture in the ‘‘ earning”’ section of the population 
decreased by 5°9 of the whole, the share of industry increased 
by 3°7 per cent., and that of industry and commerce together 
by 6 per cent. 

Even numerically, in spite of the growth of population, agri- 
culture only just maintained its position. In 1882, agriculture, 
forestry, and fishery employed 8,236,496 persons in the whole 
of Germany, in 1895, 8,292,692, an increase of 56,206, or O°7 
per cent. During the same period the number of persons 
employed in industry and mining increased from 6,896,465 to 
8,281,220, an increase of 1,884,755, or 29°5 per cent., and those 
engaged in trade and transport increased from 1,570,318 to 
2,338,511, an increase of 768,193, equal to 48°9 per cent. 

In Prussia alone, during the two occupation censuses of 1882 
and 1895, the percentage of the population identified with 
industry increased from 34°4 to 38°7 per cent., and that identi- 
fied with trade and commerce from 10°0 to 11°4 per cent. 

The following were the numbers of persons engaged in the 
more important industries and trades at three enumerations of 
occupations :— 


Trades and Industries. 1875. 1882. 1895. 
Building .. eee obs wea Unknown 947,000 1,354,000 
Cotton ... iy. all 291,000 211,000 255,000 
Woollen and Worsted ve Ree 194,000 197,000 262,000 
Flax and Linen Wy Me 200,000 138,000 106,000 
Silk yy sa eA on 77,000 91,000 70,000 
Mining ae 3 A Mew 283,000 321,000 430,000 
Tron and Steel Mie biog eee 732,000 808,000 1,115,000 . 
Leather ... ohh she ni 490,000 542,000 555,000 
Paper’. '"s:. Sat Av see 46,000 58,000 85,000 
Glass 4a 36,000 39,000 58,000 
Brick, Tile, and Pottery obe 145,000 227,000 307,000 
Chemical Kes 41,000 57,000 97,000 


Until the appearance of the results of the occupation census 
taken throughout the Empire in the summer of 1907, the only 


THE EPOCE OF INDUSTRY | 45 


official statistics of the industrial population of recent date are 
those relating to workpeople employed in undertakings liable to 
control by the factory inspectors—in the main the employees in 
factories and workshops, most of the handicrafts and the building 
trades being therefore excluded. These workpeople in 1905 
numbered 5,607,657, made up of 4,173,522 adult males (74'4 
per cent. of the whole), 1,041,626 adult females, 2.e., above 16 
years (18°6 per cent.), 382,264 juveniles, i.¢., from 14 to 
16 years (6°8 per cent.), and 10,245 children under 14 years 
(0:2 per cent.). The total numbers of male and female workers 
were as follows :— 


Males. Females. Total. 
Adults... lg aus wih 4,173,522 1,041,626 §,215,148 
Juveniles Wes S70 ea 246,591 135,673 382,264 
Children ... ee nee nay 5,771 4,474 10,245 








4,425,884 1,181,773 5,607,657 





These workpeople fell into the following groups of indus- 
tries :— 


Mining, Smelting, and Salt Works .. eee pap 914,968 
Industries of Stones and Harths vile au ese 628,372 





Metal Working ... ae ate aoe ant aoe 497,101 
Machine Industries eae ona ate nae ot 789,573 
Textile wei oe fs ge! tee ane aes 827,066 
Wood gt ine te ia Me 342,007 
Food, Drinks, Tobacco, eo aa na dua asd 551,514 
Clothing and Cleaning ... ns mr ah hy 326,059 
Paper, &c. ... tee fps dee ‘py 156,522 
Polygraphic (Printing: &o. ) ose wes oft My. 155,310 
Chemical Industries... ad ay ave eke 127,246 
Building (Wood) Yards, &. ... ove ork sce 125,997 
Leather... tbh ees tive sae 87,474 
Oil, Fat, miiinants, ba. sae net sa ane 66,271 
Miscellaneous ie see me a wae coe 12,177 

5,607,657 


Of these workpeople 3,428,004 belonged to Prussia, 646,219 
to Saxony, 429,426 to Bavaria, 209,843 to Baden, 195,972 
to Wurtemberg, 219,501 to Alsace-Lorraine, and 94,715 to 
. Hesse. 


46 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


The more important groups were most largely represented in 
the following States :— 


Wurtem- Baden Alsace- 


Prussia. Bavaria. Saxony. berg. r ih areuina, 


-. ee) | $e 


Mining --- | 796,268 _ 37,240 — _ 39,136 » 





Stones and 
Earths ... | 382,020 | 77,127 53,568 —_ 21,154 


Metal-working} 619,580 | 38,864 42,067 | 24,250 30,275 — 
Machinery ... | 471,577 | 55,592 90,542 | 39,795 33,389 18,797 
Chemical ...| 78,743 | 18,177 5,832 _ 4,639 4,065 
Textile --- | 361,557 | 54,799 | 214,140 | 42,957 32,019 70,799 
Paper «| 76,289 | 14,106 34,327 


Wood ... | 193,666 | 38,094 37,745 | 15,107 12,657 ~ 
Food, Drinks, 

Tobacco, &c.| 320,912 | 46,001 36,150 | 18,658 47,381 — 
Clothing ... | 190,868 | 30,201 47,008 | 15,163 — — 


The total number of factories and workshops was 226,565. 

Dr. C. Wenzel, the Secretary of the Association for the 
Protection of the Chemical Industry, estimated, in a paper read 
before that association, that the wages of German industry, 
together with the transport trades (but excluding the post, 
telegraph, and railway services) amounted in 1906 to the large 
total of £375,000,000, showing an increase as compared with 
1905 of £34,000,000, or 9°9 per cent., comparing with an 
increase of 4°9 per cent. in the number of workpeople. This 
wages bill, however, takes no account of workpeople who were not 
employed in factories and workshops subject to the control of 
the factory inspectors. 

One may be helped to realise the advance which Germany has 
made in industry and commerce by comparing, so far as statis- 
tical data are available, the output in certain great branches of 
production at the present time with that of thirty or forty years 
ago. 


THe Coat MINING INDUSTRY. 


Perhaps the most striking progress has been made by the 
mineral and metal industries. The principal coalfields are those 
of the Ruhr, in Westphalia; the Saar, lying below Trier, between 
the Rhine and the French frontier; Upper and Lower Silesia, 
and Saxony (Zwickau) ; while lignite is mined on the Oder, on 


THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY 47 


the Saale, and in Lusatia. The great movement of this industry 
began with the general industrial expansion which followed the 
French War. In 1862 the entire coal output of the German 
States and Luxemburg was 15,570,000 metric tons*; in 1872 it 
was 38,306,000 tons. The output of the first five years after 
the war is compared with that of a similar period thirty years 
later :— 


Metric tons. , Metric tons 
1871 see eee 29,398,000 1901 ene ees 108,939,000 
1872 oab «- 933,306,000 1902 toe ee» 107,473,000 
1873 Sea «.- 36,392,000 1903 eee ... 116,637,000 
1874 nb -« 35,919,000 1904 eee .-. 120,815,000 
1875 ve e. 37,436,000 1905 coe es. 121,298,000 


The output of 1906, owing to the flourishing condition of 
industry, reached the abnormal amount of 136,489,000 tons of 
coal and 56,235,000 tons of lignite, with 20,260,000 tons 
of coke, nearly all the latter being produced in Prussia. 

In this State the coal industry has multiplied sixfold during 
the past forty years. The coal production of Prussia in 1852 
was 5,150,000 metric tons, and by 1865 it had increased to 
18,590,000 tons. After the war it increased as follows: 1871, 
25,950,000 tons; 1872, 29,500,000 tons; 1873, 32,350,000 
tons; 1874, 31,930,000 tons; 1875, 38,410,000 tons. From 
that time the increase was still more rapid, until in 1906 it stood 
at 128,300,000 tons, an increase of 590 per cent. since 1865 ; 
the number of workmen employed had meantime increased from 
‘89,152 to 467,625, an increase of 423 per cent.; and the value 
‘of the coal produced from £4,955,000 to £55,780,000, an 
‘increase of 1025 per cent. 

_ The various State mines ‘n Prussia produce about 14 per cent. 

of the total output, though new pits are about to be sunk at a 
cost of several million pounds, which will materially increase 
that proportion. 

Of Germany’s coal production, the Westphalian mines alone 
yield more than one half, and those of Silesia more than one 
quarter, while Prussia’s entire share exceeds 90 per cent. 

The great centre of the coal industry is Dortmund, whose 


* The data contained in the following pages are in the main taken from 
German official publications. Quantities are given, unless otherwise stated, in 
metric tons (0'985 English ton) of 20 centners (110°23 English lbs.), and the mark 
is, for convenience, taken as the equivalent of a shilling. . 


48 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GHRMANY 


growth is yet of comparatively modern date. In 1792 the 154 
small coal mines which existed in the present Dortmund official 
mining district employed together only 1,357 men, and their 
output was 176,670 tons. In 1880 there were 202 mines with 
80,152 men and an output of 22,495,204 tons; in 1900 the 
number of collieries was only 167, but that of the miners was 
226,902, and the output was 59,618,000 tons; and in 1906 the 
collieries numbered 175, the miners 278,719, and the output 
was 76,811,054 tons, to which must be added 15,500,000 tons 
of coke and 1,213,000 tons of briquettes. In 1792 the produc- 


tion per man was 130 tons, it is now 250 tons; the value of 


the output was then £25 per head, it is now £180. A 
hundred years ago the mines had on an average nine men each ; 
to-day there are 52 collieries with over 2,000 men, 23 have 
an average of 4,200, five have over 5,000 men, and one has 
over 8,000. 

The law of diminishing returns does not as yet trouble the 
German colliery industry. Technical improvements and more 
intensive exploitation of the mines have increased the output 
and have reduced the costs of production, and the return on 
capital is to-day larger than ever. It is at the same time a ques- 
tion to what extent the higher prices and profits are due to the 
syndicating of the industry and represent monopoly gains. The 
Rhenish-Westphalian Coal Syndicate controls more than half 
the total production of the country. In 1906 it embraced 87 
collieries or companies, and the allotted output was 76,275,000 
tons of coal, 12,258,000 tons of coke, and 2,830,000 tons 
of briquettes. The largest individual shares fell to the 
Gelsenkirchen Mining Company with 17,698,000 tons of 
coal and 1,295,000 tons of coke, the Harpen Muning 
Company with 7,240,000 tons of coal and 1,550,000 tons 
of coke, and the Hibernia Company with 5,416,000 tons. of 
coal and 812,000 tons of coke. Of the syndicate’s total 
output of coal and coke, these three companies furnished 
27 per cent. 

As showing the dependence of the coal trade upon ile 
industries, it may be stated that the Coal Syndicate estimated 
in 1905 that about 70 per cent. of its total output was used 
directly for industrial purposes. The following percentages fell 
to the principal industries in that year and 1903 :-— 


en 


THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY 49 


Industries. 1905. 1903. 


Smelting Works and making of Iron and te pa «| 26°70 23°60 
Iron and Steel Manufacture ... és Gea es 8°95 7°51 
Metal Working other than above ... sie ys 1:0 0°61 
Machine, Instrument, and Apparatus Works cee apy. 2°18 4:08 
Electrical Industry... ah site dvs 1:03 1-08 
Coal, Coke, and Briquette production Was oa te.) 6°56 5°74 
Production of Ores... 74 es wa 0°61 0°53 
Meial Smelting Works other than Iron is td. se 0°69 0-92 
Salt production... nM as AN A 0°40 0°53 
Stone and Earth industry poly Li AS ave pi 4:70 5 ‘89 
Glass... vr pad daa oe ey 0°83 1:26 
Chemical aot 48 Nes van vila sa vee 3°29 3°91 
Gas ate eee ade a i We oe art 3°40 3°65 
Textile ... dod ida oes Rea add yas 3°16 4°23 
Paper and Printing Ne aa oak ose aad ae 1-25 1:26 
Brewing and Distilling... es a oe wv By 1:28 1:82 
Food and Luxuries ___... ae ies ope ees wy 1-10 1-21 
Leather and Rubber ... ep wen a det wet 0°34 0°50 
Wood ... os as are “he tas pe 0°19 0°22 
Sugar and Starch ae dee sé aaa due on 0-91 1:02 

0°62 


Water Works, &c. wba Si ee Me ine ave 0°47 


In addition 15 per cent. was, in 1905, used for domestic 
purposes, the railways and tramways used 10°67 per cent., the 
shipping trade 4°66 per cent., and the navy 0°66 per cent. 

Germany still imports some nine million tons of coal, but 
twice this amount is exported. The greater part of the imported 
coal comes from Great Britain, and is supplied to seaport towns, 
though many inland towns receive it by river way. The West- 
phalian Syndicate is doing its best by judicious underselling to 
capture the English trade, but its efforts do not seem to com- 
mend themselves to the other industries. ‘‘ Opinion,” wrote 
a Berlin commercial journal recently, ‘‘is very divided as to 
whether it is to the interest of Germany to try to exclude 
English coal. It is pointed out that the import of this is 
largely, and, indeed, mainly, carried in German bottoms. 
The restriction of the trade would therefore injure German 
shipping, and do away with facilities for the transport of 
German industrial products to England.” It would, however, 
be unsafe to base on this argument any expectation that the 
Coal Syndicate will relax its ites to drive English coal out 
of the market. 


THE IRon and OTHER Mrinina INpDtstRizs. 


The development of the iron trade has been even more 
remarkable. The production of iron ore in all Germany with 
5 


50 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Luxemburg in 1862 was only 2,215,000 metric tons. By 1872 
it had increased to 5,896,000 tons. Then the iron industry for 
a time declined, owing to the foreign competition in pig-iron, 
facilitated by the low duties, whose entire repeal was enacted 
in 1875; the production in 1876 was only 4,712,000 tons. 
After 1880 there was a revival, and steady and almost unbroken 
progress has continued until the present time, when the output 
of iron ore is four times that of thirty years ago, though the 
imports have in the meantime increased until they double the 
exports. The home production of iron ore (including Luxem- 
burg) was as follows in the years compared :— 


Metric tons. Metric tons. 
1872 eco nee 5,896,000 1902 ave ee 17,963,600 
1873 ace ahs 6,177,000 1903 Ge «ee 21,230,700 
1874 bee se 5,137,000 1904 vee eee 22,047,400 
1875 ade ye 4,730,000 1905 oan « 23,444,100 
1876 wie see 4,712,000 1906 sae .-- 26,734,600 


Further, while 32,180 men were on an average employed in 
the principal iron ore mines in 1886, the number in 1905 was 
43,700. 


The output of other minerals in 1905 comprised: of copper ore : 


798,500 tons, against 495,800 tons in 1886); of zinc ore 731,800 
tons, against 705,200 tons in 1886; while the production of lead 
ore has remained stationary and was in 1905 152,700 tons. 
The imports of all these minerals greatly exceed the exports. 

Potash salt mining has only become a great industry during 
the past twenty years. In 1886 there was an output of 945,300 
metric tons, valued at £563,700, but in 1905 one of 50,435,000 
tons, valued at £3,014,500. These mines employed in 1905 
nearly four times as many workpeople as twenty years ago. 

The following were the workpeople employed on an average in 
1882 and 1905 in the various mining industries : | 


Mining Industry. 1882. 1905. 
Coal wee Bey suk tA bbe 195,958 493,308 
Lignite ... un fy? se wih 25,546 54,969 
Rock salt hee Les uas i 767 1,073 
Tron ore ... ice i) An eee 38,783 43,706 
Potash salts  ... Le ne baw 3,538 17,108 
Zine ores ee Aue sae ih 12,781 16,420 
Lead ores I; Bae Avy hae 20,328 11,292 
Copper ores... Aee ay ay 12,977 17,539 
Silver and Gold a OYCS sec aia aah 6,253 1,738 


All mining producis ... aa ee 320, 662 661, ,310 


——— 


THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY 51 


Tue Iron AnD Steet INpDustRins. 


The development of the iron and steel industries has followed 
similar lines, being both checked and encouraged by the same 
causes. The number of persons (employers and workpeople) 
engaged in the iron and steel industries and manufactures of 
these metals, including shipbuilding, increased between the years 
1875 and 1895 as follows :— 


1875. 1895. 
Pig Iron and Steel making ees. fiw hoon 122,325 
Engineering, Machine making, and Shipbuilding «. | 429,100 676,997 
Miscellaneous Iron and Steel working industries ... | 191,214 315,184 
Total ... oy 732,382 ‘nse [aaa 114.5 


The production of the blast-furnaces of Prussia in 1852 was 
160,000 tons; in 1875 it was 1,395,000 tons, though there was 
a temporary fall from 1,570,000 tons in 1873; and the produc- 
tion in all Germany increased from 685,000 tons in 1862 te 
2,025,000 tons in 1875. The duties were then repealed and 
the large imports of English pig-iron handicapped the struggling 
young industry. Between the years 1869 and 1879 the number 
of iron works had decreased by nearly one half. In the latter 
year the number of workpeople employed in the smelting 
industry was only 60 per cent. that of 1873. Since 1880 the 
progress made has bee continuous, and in fifteen years the 
production had doubled. In 1882 the pig-iron production of 
the world amounted to 21,000,000 metric tons, of which 
8,600,000 tons fell to Great Britain, 4,600,000 tons to the 
United States, 3,400,000 tons to Germany with Luxemburg, and 
9,000,000 tons to France. In 1890 the United States took the 
first place, and in 1903 Great Britain fell back again in favour 
of Germany, which has held the second place since. In 1876 
there were in Germany 225 furnaces in blast, 210 being blown 
out; in 1886 there were 215 in blast and 70 blown out, and for 
the six years 1900-1905 the numbers were: 1900, 274 and 24; 


52 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


1901, 268 and 46 ; 1902, 241 and 48; 1903, 254 and 39; 1904, 
254 and 48; 1905, 277 and 31; but it should be borne in mind 
that the modern furnaces are capable of a much larger produc- 
tion than those of twenty or even ten years ago. The amount 
of pig-iron produced at intervals of thirty years in the 
Empire and Luxemburg was as follows :— 


Metric tons. Metric tons. 
1871 gee ees 1,421,000 1901 wae ee. 7,880,100 
1872 eco eta 1,983,000 1902 site ees 8,529,900 
1873 Eek e-- 1,660,000 1903 2 eee 10,017,900 
1874 ue « 1,759,000 1904 ae eee 10,058,300 
1875 ove ee 1,615,000 1905 ace eee 10,875,100 


The number of men employed on the average in the 
principal works was in 1886 21,470, and in 1905 388,458, 
while the value of the output increased from £7,118,000 to 
£28,936,000. 

Germany’s entire production of pig-iron in 1907 was 13,045,760 
metric tons, of which 2,259,410 tons were foundry pig, 471,350 
Bessemer, 8,494,220 Thomas, 1,034,650 tons steel and spiegel 
iron, and 786,110 puddling pig. Of this output 5,446,124 tons, 
or 41°7 per cent., were produced in Rhineland-Westphalia, 
3,989,922 tons, or 30°6 per cent., in Lorraine and Luxemburg, 
950,446 tons, or 7'3 per cent., in the Saar district, 988,658 tons, 
or 7°2 per cent., in Silesia, and 889,906 tons, or 6°8 per cent., in 
Siegerland, the Lahn district, and Hesse-Nassau. 

The larger part of this increased production has been needed 
for home consumption. While the consumption of pig-iron was 
118 lb. per head of the population on the average of the years 
1876-1880, it increased to an average of 220 lb. during the 
years 1891-1895, to 356 lb. in 1900, and to 382 Ib. in 1905. 
Down to 1901 Germany continued to import more pig-iron than 
it exported ; since then the exports have averaged 200,000 tons 
more than the imports, except in 1907, when 170,000 tons 
more were imported than exported. While 7,213,000 tons of 
pig-iron were consumed at home in 1896, the amount consumed 
in 1907 was 138,296,000 tons. 

Thirty years ago Germany’s production of steel was barely 
half a million tons annually. It now exceeds twelve million tons, 
and has since 1895 increased fourfold, as the following figures 
show :— 


THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY 53 


Metric tons. Metric tons. 
1895 ts wae 2,830,468 1902 dee aes 7,780,682 
1896 ane wee 3,462,736 1903 one Play 8,801,515 
1897 eae -.. 38,863,469 1904 te wee 8,930,291 
1898 oer Aye 4,352,831 1905 eee .- 10,066,553 
1899 ae ae |, 4,791,032 1906 wae see’ LLSUT SOT 
1900 ee a 6,645,869 1907 aoe «» 12,063,632 


1901 _ w-- 6,394,222 


The following has been the consumption per head of the 
population of various minerals and metals at different periods 
during the past thirty years :— 


Consumption per Head of Various Minerals and Metals. 


! 
| Average of | Average of | 596. 1900. 








| 1876-1880. | 1891-1895. 1905. 

{ 
Kilog Kilog Kilog Kilog Kilog 
Coal... nas 850 1,374 1,502 1,744 1,859 
Lignite ss 320 566 650 860 998 
Pig Iron <5 51°4 100°2 123°5 161°8 173°6 
Zinc... ons 1:2 1°9 2:1 2°3 2°6 
Lead obs 1-0 1:9 2°3 31 3°3 
Copper ° 0.5 1:0 1:5 1:9 2:1 


Tur SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY. 


One of the industries of special interest to the United 
Kingdom which has of late years made rapid progress is 
the shipbuilding industry. very year this industry becomes 
more independent of foreign material. A recent report of the 
Imperial Statistical Office on the imports of the year testifies 
to this. Under the Customs Tariff Law materials used in the 
*‘construction, improvement, and equipment’ of sea-going 
ships, inclusive also of the ordinary ship utensils, have always 
beon admitted free of duty subject to regulations issued from 
time to time by the Federal Council. Calling attention to 
the decreasing imports of such materials, so far as relates to 
iron and steel, the Statistical Office explained that this was 
not due to a smaller demand on the part of German ship- 
building yards, but to the fact that their demand was “‘ increas- 
ingly covered by German iron.’ ‘‘ This iron, and particularly 
raw ship plates,’ it added, ‘‘more and more supersedes foreign 
and especially English shipbuilding iron, because of the lower 
prices and lower railway rates.’’ Yet up to twenty or thirty 
years ago the accepted maxim was that nowhere else save in 


64 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


England could good ships be built, and that England could not 
build bad ones. The yards of the Tyne and Clyde ruled the 
shipbuilding industry, and when German ships of large tonnage 
were first commissioned in home yards, it was with fear 
and trembling, as much on the ground of unproved capacity as 
of doubtful financial resource. The North German Lloyd, 
which was established in Bremen in 1857, bought in England 
and Scotland the steamships with which it began regular 
sailings to the United States. One of the oldest North Sea 
yards, the Vulcan, of Stettin, which was developed from a 
smaller undertaking in 1857, kept itsclf alive for a long time 
by locomotive building. When in 1887 it received a contract 
for its first large ocean liner, the commission was regarded 
as a daring experiment, and several banks had to undertake a 
financial guarantee for the execution of the work, which, 
nevertheless, proved entirely satisfactory, and gave the Vulcan 
its start on a career of great prosperity. 

To-day Germany not merely builds the greater part of its 
own ships, but it builds largely for other countries. During 
1906 there were built in German private yards 757 ships 
(against 645 in 1905 and 5384 in 1904) with a tonnage of 
390,991 (against 308,361 in 1905 and 260,711 in 1904). 
Of these vessels, 8 were ships of war, 623 merchant ships, 
and 87 vessels for river navigation, and there were built for 
foreign countries 2 ships of war, 105 merchant ships, and 87 
vessels for river navigation. During the same year foreign 
yards built for Germany 119 vessels with a tonnage of 122,845 
(against 90 vessels with a tonnage of 92,589 in 1905), 118 
vessels (84in 1905) being merchantmen. The result was that 
the German merchant marine was during the year increased by 
631 vessels, with a registered tonnage of 450,256, the largest 
increase ever known. Thirty years ago Admiral Stosch, then 
Naval Minister, showed clear prescience when he said, ‘‘ Without 
a German shipbuilding industry a German navy is inconceiy- 
able.’’ While, however, it is true that the development of the 
shipbuilding industry has greatly stimulated the movement 
for a stronger navy, the shipbuilders have had their reward. 
When in 1906 the Navy League interrogated the private yards 
of the North and Baltic ports as to their building capacity, 
they were assured that the six largest yards were able to 





THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY 55 


supply together fifteen vessels of war yearly and would be 
delighted to do it. 


-~ Tur Execrrican INDustRY. 


The electrical industry has also developed at giant’s pace 
during the past decade... In 1894 the number of electrical works 
in Germany was 148; in 1904 there were 1028 works, distributed 
in 9938 towns, with 168 more building. It is an industry in which 
there has been comparatively little syndicating, yet by the aid of 
unlimited capital and repeated amalgamations the greater part 
of the industry has gradually come into the hands of a small 
group of powerful companies, one of which has a capital of five 
million pounds and loans and reserves of four millions, while its 
employees numbered 34,000 in 1906, and another has a capital 
of two and three-quarter million pounds and loans and reserves | 
of nearly two millions. Up to twenty years ago, when the 
industry was in its infancy, only one firm, that of Siemens and 
Halske, of Berlin, seriously counted. The electrification of 
tramways, which began on a large scale shortly afterwards, led 
to the establishment of many undertakings, some of which scon 
became powerful rivals, and in 1900 there were at least seven 
distinct groups. The depression which then set in pointed to 
further amalgamation as the only means of staving off catastrophe 
in several cases, and that process has continued since. 

The growth of this industry, or more truly of the large 
companies, has been due in great measure to the policy of _— 
establishing or otherwise financing, with the aid of banks, 
companies for the construction and working of tramway and 
light railway schemes in the large towns and their neighbour- 
hood. Hence it is that several of these mammoth companies 
have ramifications in all parts of the country, insomuch that 
wherever electrical traction or power enterprise exists on a large 
scale itis almost certain that one or other of the undertakings in 
the well-known electrical group will be in or behind, below or 
above, it. One of the largest of these companies, which owns a 
series of works for the manufacture of electrical machinery, 
plant, rolling stock, cables, &c., and supplies electrical power to 
municipalities, has constructed no fewer than 130 lines of all 
kinds, with an aggregate length of nearly 3,500 miles, and has 
installed nearly 700 generating stations, with over 800,000 horse- 


56 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


power. It controls over thirty subsidiary companies for the 
furtherance of its trade at home and abroad. The principal 
electrical works have their seats in Prussia—for though one 
powerful undertaking exists in Bavaria it is closely allied to 
a Berlin company—and in the year 1905 there were in thai 
State alone 75 companies, with a capital together of twenty-two 
and a half million pounds, loans of all kinds of over forty-three 
millions, and reserves of twelve and a half millions. 


THe TrextinE TRADES. 


There has been a similar expansion in the textile trades, though 
the mere figures of persons employed would be misleading unless 
allowance were made for the altered conditions of production, 
which have operated in Germany as in this country—larger 
looms, improved machinery of all kinds, speeding up, and other 
contrivances for increasing production, and not least the raising of 
the factory age for children. In 1875 it was estimated that 762,000 
persons (employers and workpeople) were engaged in the whole 
of the textile trades; in 1882 the number was 637,000 and in 
1895 it was 693,000. The ratio per 1,000 of the population was 
17°8 in 1875, 14°1 in 1882, and 13°4 in 1895. In the United 
Kingdom 1,082,000 persons were employed in these industries 
in 1881, against 1,120,000 in 1891, and 1,008,000 in 1901, the 
ratios per 1,000 of the population being 31°3, 29°7, and 24:3 
respectively. In the case of Germany the great decrease 
occurred in the cotton and woollen weaving industries. 

The number of persons (employers and workpeople) engaged 
in the more important branches of the textile trades were as 
follows in 1875 and 1895 :— 





1875. 1895. 

Cotton— 
Spinning .. re bes eae bie ‘s 66,797 74,807 
Weaving . 203,489 147,121 
Bleaching, Dyeing, Printin g, and Finishing .. 20,277 32,618 
Totals ... «- | 290,563 | 254,546 

Woollen and Worsted— 

Preparing processes = ave FF eee eee 4,696 16,358 
Spinning 62,683 
Weaving ¥ * {Shea { 153,098 
Mungo and Shoday Daa aan and Spinning 4,776 7,390 
Dyeing, Printing, and Finishing a 12,007 22,731 
Totals.» xs: ... | 193,668 | 262,260 


THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY 57 

















1875. 1895. 
Flax and Linen— 
Preparing processes and Spinning... Ae 32,642 32,253 
Weaving ... --- | 164,085 67,792 
Bleaching, Dyeing, Printing, and Finishing .. 3,482 5,671 
Totals... «- | 200,209 | 105,716 
Silk— 
Preparing tana oes the’ aes ees 133 178 
Spinning .. me bay pe te. na 10,280 6,809 
Weaving . yas ae 63,992 56,082 
Dyeing, Printing, ‘and Finishing tats +5! 2,919 6,732 





"LOURIA’ sek hdl 77,324 69,801 


In 1905 there were employed in the 14,338 textile factories 
under inspection 750,898 adult (586,263 females over 16 years) 
and 76,168 juvenile workers, a total of 827,066, of whom 
328,740 adults and 32,817 juveniles belonged to Prussia and 
195,281 adults and 18,859 juveniles to Saxony. In the textile 
factories of the United Kingdom there were employed in 1904 
1,026,378 workpeople, of whom 489,329 were females above 18 
years and $1,744 children under 14 years. 

Now, as thirty years ago, the principal centres of the cotton 
trade are the provinces of Rhineland and Silesia, in Prussia, 
Saxony, Alsace-Lorraine, and Bavaria, and of the woollen trade 
the provinces of Rhineland, Brandenburg, and Silesia, in Prussia, 
Saxony, Alsace-Lorraine, and Reuss. 

Before 1871 France headed Germany in the number of its 
spindles. The war of that year turned the scale by transferring 
Alsace-Lorraine to its neighbour, which increased its number 
of spindles by 50 per cent., and the lead thus gained Germany 
has maintained since. In 1906 it was estimated that Germany 
had 9,780,200 spindles (1,295,600 more than in 1901) and 
231,200 looms (19,880 more than in 1901). Rhineland and 
Westphalia had 2,731,990 spindles and 50,140 looms, Bavaria 
1,577,680 spindles and 31,090 looms, Alsace 1,536,560 spindles 
and 39,920 looms, Saxony 1,968,580 spindles and 39,230 looms, 
Wurtemberg and Hohenzollern 793,120 spindles and 20,130 
looms, Baden 526,800 spindles and 16,740 looms, the province 
of Silesia 183,980 spindles and 16,540 looms, the Rhenish 
Palatinate 129,840 spindles and 1,690 looms, and other parts 
of Germany (chiefly the North) 331,750 spindles and 15,710 


58 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


looms. Against Germany’s nine and three-quarter million 
spindles and a quarter of a million looms there are some fifty- 
five million spindles and nine hundred thousand looms in the 
United Kingdom. 

Germany’s imports of raw Souiant in the years 1854-6 averaged 
about 50,000 metric tons, of which 12,500 tons were re-exported, 
so that the home consumption was 37,500 tons. During the 
years 1875-7 the average consumption of raw and worked cotton 
reached 127,500 tons, though in the meantime Alsace had been 
annexed. Within the next twenty years, however, the amount 
doubled, and during the last five years it has averaged 370,000 
metric tons. 

The consumption of cotton per head of the population on the 
average of the years 1836-1840 was 0°75 lb.; on the average 
for the years 1846-1850 it was 1°16 lb.; in 1856-1860 it was 
3 lb.; in 1876-1880 6°3 lb.; in 1886-1890 9:2 lb.; in 1896- 
1900 12°2 lb.; in 1904 it was 14°1 lb., in 1905 14:3 1b., andin 
1906 13°8 lb. 

Germany still imports a large quantity of yarn, particularly 
from England, and in a minor degree from France and Switzer- 
land, but it is now for the most part in the finer counts, and this _ 
is a trade in which Germany’s customers cannot count on any 
fixity of tenure. The total imports of yarn, both cotton and 
woollen, are hardly less than thirty years ago, but Germany now 
largely exports woollen yarns in return. 


THE CHEMICAL AND PapER INDUSTRIES. 


Other industries have made equal progress, among them the 
_ chemical and paper industries. It was estimated in 1903 that 
over 150,000 workpeople were employed in the chemical industry, 
15°9 per cent. being engaged in the dye and colour trade, 14:8 
per cent. in the manufacture of pharmaceutical and photo- 
graphic materials, 14°3 per cent. in the alkali and acid trade, 
12°1 per cent. in the wood and tar distillation trade, and 10°1 
per cent. in the artificial manure trade. The importance of 
Germany’s colour industry for the English market is~proved——— 
by the -promptitude with which, under the new Patent Law, 
the leading firms are arranging for the establishment of 
works in this country. Germany’s exports of aniline and other 


. 
} 
| 
q 
}. 


i 
i 
Hy 


THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY 59 


dyes and of indigo have increased as follows during the past ten 
years :-— 





Aniline Dyes. Indigo. 
£ £ 
1896 3,245,000 320,000 
1897 8,350,000 240,000 
1898 3,600,000 380,000 
1899 3,745,000 390,000 
1900 3,865,000 470,000 
1901 3,980,000 635,000 
1902 4,465,000 925,000 
1903 4,400,000 1,035,000 
1904 4,430,000 1,085,000 
1905 5,035,000 1,285,000 
1906 5,950,000 1,580,000 


_ Of the exports of aniline dyes Great Britain has for many years 
_ shared to the extent of a million pounds a year. In 1906 
- 148 limited liability companies in the chemical industry had a 


combined subscribed capital of £23,850,000, with reserves of 
£7,700,000, and paid an aggregate dividend of £3,600,000, 


_ equal to 15 per cent. all round. 


..._Lhe sugar industry has also made rapid progress during recent 
‘years. In 1848 there were 145 sugar manufactories in Germany, 
and their output was about 12,500 tons of raw sugar, produced 
from 250,000 tons of beet. In 1879 the number of manufac- 
tories had increased to 324, 4,650,000 tons of beet were used, 
and 425,000 tons of raw sugar were produced. In the campagne 
1905-6, there were in work 425 manufactories and refineries, 
whose entire production of raw sugar was 2,400,770 tons. 

The paper industry owes its great growth in recent years to the 

_use of wood pulp, of which German paper factories now use more 
“than 500,000 tons yearly. The wages paid to the80,000 workpeople 
engaged in the paper industry in 1906 amounted to £8,290,000, 
though in 1887 the wages bill was only £1,393,000. In this in- 
dustry there has been great concentration during late years, and 
the growth which has taken place since 1887 has been in the size - 
of the individual undertakings rather than in their number, for 
there were only 8 more in 1906 than 1887 (1,258 against 1,245). 


INDustTRIAL CONCENTRATION. 


The tendency to industrial concentration is shown by the 
returns of public companies, which point to the growing domina- 


60 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


tion of large undertakings. Of 4,749 registered public companies 
in 1895 13°6 per cent. had a share capital not exceeding £5,000, 
but in 1906, of 5,060 such companies, only 9°6 per cent. had a 
capital of that amount; the companies with a capital of from — 
£5,000 to £12,500 decreased from 14°0 to 10°4 per cent., and 
those with a capital of from £12,500 to £25,000 decreased from 
16°9 to 14°2 per cent. On the other hand, the companies with 
a capital of from £25,000 to £50,000 increased from 20°7 to 
21°3 per cent.; those with a capital of from £50,000 to 
£250,000 increased from 28°5 to 35°0 per cent.; those with a 
capital of from £250,000 to £500,000 increased from 3°4 to 
5°4 per cent., and those with a capital exceeding £500,000 
increased from 2°9 to 4°1 per cent. 

In 1896 there were only two companies with a capital exceed- 
ing five millions; in 1906 there were nine such companies, 
and their combined capital was over seventy millions, having 
been more than doubled since 1896. 

In spite of this tendency towards the concentration of capital 
and the multiplication of large undertakings, however, Germany 
is still an interesting illustration of an industrial country which 
has not yet entirely gone over to the factory system of pro- 
duction. The handicrafts, the characteristic feature of which 
is the small, independent master-workman, surrounded by his 
handful of journeymen and apprentices, contend tenaciously, 
yet unfortunately with only partial success, against the on- 
coming tide of ‘‘ great capitalism’ (private, joint-stock, and 
co-operative), and the house industries continue to afford 
employment to a multitude of workers of both sexes, 
estimated at half a million. It is a pathetic spectacle, this 
strenuous endeavour of the representatives of earlier modes of 
production to hold their own against the powerful forces which 
steam, mechanical appliances, and combination of capital are 
able to array against them. It is a contest in which, as 
experience unmistakably teaches, the weaker side is fated sooner 
or later to go to the wall, yet no one dare assert that the 
threatened domination of gigantic industrial enterprises, and 
the sweeping away more and more of the small independent 
existences, hold out the prospect of unmixed economic advantage, 
much less of greater social peace. 

Here and there, however, are found striking exceptions to 


THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY 61 


| the decay of the small industry, as in the centre of the cutlery 
and small iron industry, Solingen, Remscheid, and the neigh- 
bourhood, where the supply of electric power by the municipal 
authorities and private companies has given a new lease of 
life to hundreds of independent family and individual work- 


shops which otherwise would have disappeared long ago. 
In a less degree the same thing applies to home weaving in 
certain branches of the silk trade in the Crefeld and 
Elberfeld districts and to cotton weaving in some of the 


tural districts of Saxony. 


No statistics for recent years exist as to the number of 
independent employers, but a comparison can be made for Prussia 


between the years 1882 and 1895, and it is safe to conclude that 
the reduction shown has continued since. While in 1882 there 
were in industry and handicraft together 755,176 independent 
masters without assistants or motor-power, the number was 
674,042 in 1895, showing a reduction of 10°7 per cent. On 


the other hand the number of undertakings employing assistants 
or motor-power was, in 1882, 466,963, with 2,635,117 persons 


in the aggregate, but 498,098, with 3,883,707 persons, in 
1895. The tendency towards larger undertakings is illustrated 





by the following figures :— 


Number of undertakings, Number of persons employed. 





Undertakings with— 1882. 1895. 1882. 1895. 


1 person 32,670 33,607 32,293 33,607 

2 persons 217,098 189,591 434,196 379,182 

3 to 5 ¥ 162,656 186,134 564,652 665,607 
6to10 ,, 28,431 43,999 211,316 323,281 

Ii to 60. s, 20,579 34,628 430,278 747,146 

51 to 200 _—sC—7»/, 4,378 8,235 403,049 757,357 
201 to 1,000 te 1,060 1,719 400,598 656,817 
over 1,000 * 91 185 158,735 320,710 
Totals ... 466,963 498,098 2,635,117 3,883,707 


Tur HaANnpDIcRAFTS. 


But for resolute efforts made by the threatened class itself, 
seconded by legislative measures—scoffed at by the liberal] 


62 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


school of politicians as ‘‘ artificial ’’—the handicrafts would have 
been unable to withstand the advance of this relentless stream 
of economic tendency so long. In 1861 there were in Prussia 
28°9 independent handicraftsmen to every thousand of the 
population ; in 1895 the ratio was 26°7; and since that time 
decline had proceeded apace, until it is now only 18 per 1,000. 
Some of the handicrafts are as good as dead—spinning, weaving 
(with such exceptions as have been already noted), coopering, 
nail, rope, and button-making; and others are quickly losing 
ground, like the pottery, cutlery, copper, and locksmithing, and 
to some extent the joinery and shoemaking trades; and there 
are few that show no signs of decay, though one of the excep- 
tions is the skilled watch and clock-making industry.* Mean- 
time, all that can be done by State help and technical education 
to postpone the extinction of the handicrafts is being done. 
Their organisation is encouraged in every way, though the 
Imperial Government has stopped short of compulsion, to the 
regret of the Conservative and Clerical parties, which fail to 
recognise that the indiscriminate application of direct coercion 
would tend to weakness, and that the best way to popularise 
Trade Guilds in an age of industrial freedom is by appealing to 
class-consciousness, emulation, and pride in honest workman- 
ship. The Imperial Statistical Office recently published the 
result of an investigation into the operation of the Handicraft 
Laws, from which it appeared that in Prussia 50 per cent. of 
the 677,000 independent handicraftsmen, 73°9 per cent. of 
the 648,000 journeymen, and 64°7 per cent. of the 292,000 
apprentices are organised in Guilds. 


* In his investigation into the condition of the handicrafts, published in one 
of the series of the monographs of the Association for Social Politics, Herr 
Voigt divides the handicrafts into four groups according as they are decaying, 
retrogressive, stationary, and prosperous. In the decadent handicrafts he classes 
those of spinners, dyers, weavers, nail-makers, cap-makers, millers, tanners, 
coopers, rope-makers, brewers, varnishers, gilders, soap-boilers, gun-makers, pas- 
sementerie-makers, furriers, glaziers, hat-makers, turners, and picture-carvers, 
Between 1882 and 1895 the number of independent masters (including factory 
owners) in this group of crafts decreased from 500,000 to 330,000, the decrease 
in the textile industry alone being 125,000, viz., from 272,000 to 147,000. In 
the group of retrogressive industries he places those of independent potters, 
coppersmiths, locksmiths, tool, scythe, and knifesmiths, file-cutters, scissors- 
grinders, cartwrights, joiners, and shoemakers, the number of whom decreased 
from 462,000 to 445,000 during the same period; the greatest decrease 


THE EPOCH OF INDUSTRY 63 


Tue Rurat INpDustRIss. 


The rural house industries are making a no less resolute 
stand,-and are illustrating the common experience that the 
threatened life is often the most tenacious. The hand-weaving 
industry of Silesia, one of the oldest and largest of them, has 
been declared hopeless a hundred times, yet it refuses to give up 
the struggle, and indeed the population of the hill country in 
that part of Prussia, poor as it is, would be plunged into in- 
finitely worse penury but for the employment it offers. In the 
Black Forest clock-making is an extensive industry amongst the 
peasantry, and the prosperity of some of the villages so engaged 
is almost wholly dependent upon the trade done with England, 
the United States, and other countries. Rural Thuringia is 
largely given up to basket and cork-making, wood-carving, 
and the fashioning of dolls of a thousand kinds, the latter an 
ingenious business centuries old; and the highlands of Saxony 
and Bavaria have also a large house industrial population. 

Yet, though the rural house industries find work for a multitude 
of people of both sexes and all ages, most of whom would other- 
wise be compelled either to migrate to the towns or to slowly 
starve on insufficient food at home, it cannot be ignored that 
they rather alleviate the economic conditions of rural existence 
than furnish an ideal or even a tolerable standard of life. In 
judging their practical value and their place in a modern in- 
dustrial system, the question which it is most essential to ask 
is—‘‘ What would become of these workers and their depen- 
dents did such means of earning not exist?’’ There can be 
no doubt that the poverty which prevails in all these centres of 
industry would become far acuter and the life of the small 
being in shoemakers and joiners, viz., from 235,000 to 110,000. The stationary 
handicrafts he found to be chiefly those of tailors, masons, carpenters, stone- 
cutters, bookbinders, goldsmiths, and saddlers, the number of master workmen 
being about 360,000, including 250,000 tailors, masons, and carpenters. Finally, 
the prosperous handicrafts included the watchmakers, upholsterers, bakers, 
butchers, barbers, painters, roofers, chimney-sweepers, &c., to the number of 
about 280,000. 

As will be seen, the handicrafts shown as either decadent or stationary are 
in general those in which capital plays the greatest part, and which specially 
lend themselves to wholesale and associated production, while the handi- 
erafis which have best maintained their position are those in which individual 


enterprise is most effective or in which labour plays a predominant part in 
the cost of production. 


wt 


64. THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


peasantry there would become far less endurable were these occu- 
pations to be forcibly extinguished, as the Socialists desire. 

It is the recognition of this fact that has led the Govern- 
ments of all the States having large populations so employed 
to encourage and assist the rural industries by every means in 
their power—by offering technical instruction of a kind suited 
to each locality, both by schools and travelling teachers, and by 
liberal grants of money in special times of misfortune. In 
Bavaria travelling teachers are appointed by the State, whose 
duty it is to go from place to place in the rural districts where 
hand-weaving is still a staple industry, supervising the work 
done, advising as to new designs, and imparting instruction to 
beginners. Not only so, but these teachers negotiate between 
the weavers and the dealers of the towns who purchase their 
goods, with the result that higher prices are obtained and the 
supply is more successfully adapted to the demand, so that the 
weavers are often prevented from producing superfluous goods, 
which would have to be sold at hunger prices or lie long upon 
their hands. 

An interesting industry which combines both the factory and 
the house system, and which gives employment to an enormous 
amount of male and-female labour, is the toy industry of 
Nuremberg and district, Sonneberg, Silesia, and the Erzgebirge. 
Ten or fifteen years ago the entire production of this many-sided 
industry was valued at three and a half million pounds, of which 
exports represented about one-half. In 1906 the production 
was estimated at nearly six million pounds, and the export 
branch alone at four millions. In so far as the industry is 
carried on as a house industry the wages are low, but in the 
towns fairly remunerative employment is given in modern fac- 
tories and workshops to an increasing number of workers of 
both sexes. At least a quarter of the exports of this industry, 
which does not require large capital nor, with modern mechanical 
methods, exceptional skill, are sent to the United Kingdom. 
There is, in fact, little or nothing in the trade which could not 
be manufactured as well in England as Germany. 


CHAPTER IV 
FOREIGN TRADE AND SHIPPING 


The growth of Germany’s foreign trade—Comparision of imports and exports 
—Geographical distribution of foreign trade—The trade with the 
British Empire—Germany’s increasing negative balance of trade— 
Growth of the mercantile marine—The fastest vessels afloat—Develop- 
ment of the sea and river ports: Hamburg, Bremen, Mannheim, 
Frankfort, &c. 


ERMANY’S industrial expansion is best illustrated by the 
statistics of foreign trade. It is estimated that the imports 

of the German States in 1860 amounted to fifty-four and three- 
quarter million pounds, the exports to seventy millions, equal to 
about £1 12s. 8d. and £2 Is. 5d. respectively per head of 
the population. Between the years 1850 and 1860 the imports 
had doubled and the exports nearly trebled in value. In 
1880 Germany’s total imports for home consumption were 
£141,000,000, and its imports of manufactured goods for home 
consumption were £39,100,000; its total exports of native 
produce were £144,800,000, and its exports of manufactured 
goods of native origin were £83,500,000. The value of its 
imports in 1907 was £443,000,000, and the value of the exports 
was £356,000,000; the imports being equal to £7 2s. 10d. 
per head of the population and the exports to £5 15s. The 
value of the imports of raw materials for industrial purposes 
increased during the ten years 1895 to 1905 from £90,250,000 
to £172,850,000 ; the imports of manufactured goods increased 
from £46,250,000 in 1895 to £66,400,000 in 1905; and those 
of food, luxuries, and cattle increased from 4£69,450,000 
in 1895 to £117,200,000 in 1905. The exports of raw material 
increased in value from £36,100,000 in 1895 to £70,100,000 
in 1905; those of manufactured goods from £108,900,000 in 

6 65 


66 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


1895 to £191,200,000 in 1905; and those of food and luxuries 
from £20,700,000 in 1895 to £25,370,000 in 1905. 

Every year manufactured goods form a smaller proportion of 
the imports and a larger proportion of the exports. In 1905 
46°5 per cent. in value of the imports consisted of raw materials 
for industrial purposes, comparing with 42°5 per cent. in 1895. 
The imports of manufactured goods formed 17°9 per cent. of the 
whole in 1905, against 21°8 per cent. in 1895. Food, luxuries, 
and cattle represented 31°5 per cent. of the imports in 1905 
against 32°7 per cent. in 1895. The remaining imports (4°1 
per cent. in 1905) consisted of precious metals. Of the exports, 
24 per cent. consisted in 1905 of raw materials for industrial 
purposes against 21°1 per cent. in 1895. Manufactured goods 
formed 63°7 per cent. of the total exports in 1895 and 65°4 
per cent. in 1905, and the proportion that fell to food, luxuries, 
and cattle declined from 12°4 per cent. in 1895 to 8°7 per cent. 
in 1905; the balance (1°9 per cent. in 1905) being precious metals. 

In volume the imports of raw materials for industrial purposes 
increased from 25°0 million metric tons in 1895 to 42°2 million 
tons in 1905, while the exports increased from 19°7 million tons 
in 1895 to 34'2 million tons in 1905. The imports of manu- 
factured goods increased from 1°6 million tons in 1895 to 2°3 
million tons in 1905, and the exports increased from 20 million 
tons in 1895 to 3°7 million tons in 1905. The imports of food, 
luxuries, and cattle increased from 2°0 million tons in 1895 
to 9°7 million tons in 1905, and the exports were 1°38 million 
tons in 1895 and 2°6 million tons in 1905. 

The following table of values (million pounds) shows the 
countries with which Germany had in 1905 the largest exchange 
of commodities :— 


Imports. Exports. 








In millijon pounds. 


EUROPE. 231-66 218-98 

Of which— 
Russia 4 sie ae pian eee wes §4°54 18°41 
Great Britain ana eee pee oan he 39°21 52°89 
Austria-Hungary «+ eos ees Age ay 38°65 29°74 
France Pat ees bee a ae ny! 20°45 14°67 
Holland any Ris Rts set sa fia 12°84 22°44 


Belgium a seh cue en wok aoe 13°87 15°62 


FOREIGN TRADE AND SHIPPING 67 





Imports. Exports. 
Europe (Continued). 

Of which— In millijon pounds. 
Switzerland ... aa ee oak gh Ae 9°51 18°49 
Italy ... aN +e An oa Bee A 10°80 8°77 
Sweden Swe athe He ss ues wed 5°95 7°95 
Denmark Fae wl ei ek ve ve 6:20 9°30 
SME i ois meee BU goal aL 5°84 2°65 

AMPRICA. 94°85 47°84 

Of which— 

United States ft Uns ast eek ahs 20-21 27°15 
Argentine... pe es We nat aba 18°46 6°57 
Chili ... aie ae Me ae A ay 8°42 2°67 
Brazil... bee 3. “A.” et oe ofits 8:62 3°58 
Mexico ive £x) ts et ous ni 1-11 2°17 
Canada ys a ay a yee af, 4°49 1-09 

Asta. 25°38 15°83 

Of which— 

British India... ‘ie “on a ite ee 13°82 4°30 
Dutch Indies... mae val Ae hed Ai 5°99 1°51 
China.. hs ba ooh sae prs aly 2°13 3°79 
Japan... ves eee ane nee me 1°02 4°23 
British Malacca nue one oes re Bie 1:07 0°52 
Ceylon ep my a aye ae nie 0°60 0-11 
Hong Kong ... eco ove ese a ie 0°01 0°40 

AFRICA. 11°38 6°15 

Of which— 

Egypt.. ee eee see eee eee eee 3°03 1°51 
British West Africa... fed Hide! hae mee 2°60 0:35 
British South Africa as oy My he 1:80 a hy yf 
Algeria ah isa “ah a: aiee 0°62 0°55 
Congo State . ee oe ied oa ey 0°56 0:04 

AUSTRALIA AND POLYNESIA. 8°21 2°65 

Of which— 

Australian Commonwealth... ne ben ace 7°82 ' 2°30 
New Zealand... des se age ss an 0:75 0:23 


Comparing 1905 with 1898 the trade with the five continents 
has increased in the following ratio (1898 = 100) :— 


Imports. Exports. | Together. 





Europe... ene “s ‘a Bh ae 129 136 141 
Africa ... ive ny UN Te si 225 192 212 
Asia?) '+.. ges wy kis bah Ses 150 186 162 
America rte bye bits as Cus 143 180 153 


Australia aby Vs ive Als hay 186 153 177 


ee eres een ente me Ao Hae oe en Oe ae a RE ETN oe mee 


68 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


The figures for Great Britain and the principal British 
Colonies are as follows :— 


Imports. Exports. | Together. 


Great Britain . Jee Bet ees 95 132 113 
British South Africa... cE ee Sui oe 177 144 159 
» West Africa ... es eve oes 224 101 196 
» india. ee oe hee we 141 173 147 
Canada waa hel 166 91 106 
Australian Commonwealth . saa vy 185 156 177 


Of Germany’s total foreign trade in 1905 (including the 
precious metals), in value £663,900,000, viz., imports 
£371,800,000 and exports £292,100,000, on the lowest com- 
putation no less than £137,220,000, or 18°4 per cent., was with 
the British Empire, made up of imports £71,410,000 and exports 
£65,810,000. Of Germany’s import trade 19°2 per cent. and 
of its export trade 22°5 per cent. was with the British Empire. 
The trade with the various parts of the Empire was as follows :— 





Imports. | Exports. Total. 


EUROPE. In| million | pounds. 
Great Britain oh one sen focut BOTA 52°89 92°10 
Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus coe ooo ses 0°08 0°14 0:22 
AFRICA. 


British West che ais ane eee oo 2°60 0°35 2°95 
» south A 5 ee eee eee ae 1°81 1-71 8°52 
»» Hast sas pon ose ood bo 0:17 0-11 0-28 
Egypt eee eee eee eee eee eee 3°03 1°51 4°54 


British India bas se coe eee eee | 13°89 4°30 18°19 
Ceylon af) ese eee am ose eee 0°60 0-11 0°71 


British Malacca ... ees ote ite vee 1:07 0°52 1°59 
Hong Kong eae PO aks een eee 0:01 0:40 0:41 
Aden, &e. eee eee ose eee ece eee 0:05 0:01 0:06 
AMERICA. 
Canada eee eee eee eco eee 0:49 1°09 1°58 
British West Indies. is ses eee so 0°38 0-09 0-47 
AUSTRALIA. 


Commonwealth ... 6 see cee 7-82 2°30 10°12 
New Zealand ve ove vee eee eee 0:07 0:23 0°30 
Other British Colonies ... eee see eee 0°08 0:03 0-14 


Totals ... ove | tah 65°81 | 137°22 


, 
; 
: 
| 
1 
i 
| 





FOREIGN TRADE AND SHIPPING 69 


It is no accident that while Germany’s export trade has been 
growing for many years at the average rate of three hundred 
millions of marks, or nearly £15,000,000, its ‘‘ balance of 
trade ’’ has more and more become negative—that is, the excess 
of imports over exports (which has existed almost without 
exception for more than a quarter of a century) has increased. 
The excess has for some years been about sixty million pounds 
a year, though in 1906 it was nearly a hundred millions. 

During the past decade alone (1898-1907) Germany has had 
an excess of imports above exports of over seven hundred million 
pounds. It must be left to the special student to inquire in what 
measure and in what directions this ‘‘ passive’’ balance of trade 
represents permanent additions to the capital wealth of the 
country. * 

The table last given shows that whereas Germany exports 
considerably more goods to the United Kingdom than it 
imports thence, its export and import trade with the entire 
British Empire almost balances. 

Not only has German foreign trade thus advanced by giant 
strides, but its maritime trade is more and more carried in native 
vessels. In 1874 Germany’s share in the mercantile marine of 
the world was 5°2 per cent., in 1894 it was,6°5 per cent., in 1905 
9°9 per cent. This is a department of national enterprise in 
which the present Emperor has throughout his reign shown the 
deepest interest. The two great shipping firms of Hamburg and 
Bremen owe a good deal of their prestige to Imperial patronage 
and encouragement. Some of their ships have been launched 
by members of the Imperial household, a message from the 
Emperor regularly sends every new mammoth vessel on its first 
ocean voyage, and on the directorate of one company are found 
naval officers of high rank. 


* Writing in the Economic Journal for December, 1907, Professor E. von Halle 
estimated that ‘‘ Whilst perhaps £20,000,000 are derived from shipping the rest 
of the negative balance is made up by income from investments abroad that are 
figured at something like one and a half milliard pounds. A careful review seems 
to prove that whilst the valuation of German colonial enterprise at the present time 
cannot be put higher than £50,000,000, investments in the bonds and stocks 
of foreign transoceanic countries, including Turkey, amount to £200,000,000, 
out of a total of £800,000,000 of German foreign investments in securities ; 
whilst the value of the property of German citizens living abroad and German 
investments in transoceanic undertakings, including Turkey, may be put at 
about £450,000,000. The total of investments in foreign continents represents 
the smaller half, but no doubt the most productive part of German foreign 
investments.’’ 


70 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


In 1871 Germany had a merchant marine numbering 4,519 
vessels (only 3 per cent. being steamships), with a nett ton- 
nage of 982,855; in 1906 the number of vessels was 4,320 
(nearly half being steamships), with a nett tonnage of 2,469,292. 
The North Sea ports had in 1906 1,250 steamships with a nett 
tonnage of 1,655,459, and 1,930 sailing vessels with a nett 
tonnage of 540,726, and the Baltic sea ports had 512 steamships 
with a nett tonnage of 260,016, and 369 sailing vessels with a 
nett tonnage of 15,110, besides towing vessels in each case. 
The North-German Lloyd alone, working with a capital of 
nine million pounds, had in 1906 a fleet of 134 sea-going vessels. 

The following statement of Germany’s steamships and sailing 
vessels, over thirty years ago and now, gives an idea of the 
progress made (vessels under 17°6 tons are here disregarded) :— 


Steamships. 





Year. | Number. | Nett tonnage} Crews. Year. | Number. |Nett tonnage.| Crews. 


ee Re | ee Se |, ee || eee 


1871 147 81,994 4,736 1903 | 1,545 1,622,439 | 42,984 
1872 317 183,569 9,147 1904 | 1,622 1,739,690 | 46,046 
1873 414 215,758 8,657 1905 | 1,657 1,774,072 | 46,747 
1874 664 420,605 | 14,006 1906 | 1,762 1,915,475 | 50,303 


Sailing Vessels. 


1871 | 4,372 900,361 34,739 || 1903 | 2,232 498,502 | 12,516 
1872 | 4,426 901,301 83,215 || 1904 | 2,258 497,607 | 12,701 
1873 | 4,246 965,767 81,003 || 1905 | 2,294 493,644 | 12,914 
1874 | 3,438 854,947 24,839 || 1906 | 2,299 471,836 | 12,809 


In view of these figures it is encouraging to find a Hamburg 
commercial journal lamenting: ‘‘The increase of English 
shipping proceeds with such rapidity that the distance between 
it and German shipping increases with giant steps; esti- 
mated according to population, the English mercantile marine 
has (during the past sixteen years) increased five times as 
quickly as the German, while England’s foreign trade has also 
increased more quickly, though the absolute increase was less.” 

England still leads the world with the largest and fastest vessels 
afloat, though Germany has a creditable share of the ships 
of heavy tonnage generally. Of 103 vessels of over 10,000 
tons register in service at the beginning of 1907 Germany owned 
26, and all with one exception belonged to the Hamburg- 


FOREIGN TRADE AND SHIPPING 71 


American (Hamburg) and North-German Lloyd (Bremen) Lines. 
The largest of these vessels are the Kaiserin Augusta Victoria 
and the Hamburg of the former line, with 24,600 and 22,200 
tons gross respectively; after which come seven others of from 
13,000 to 19,400 tons. Since then these two lines have 
commissioned the building of one steamship of 29,700 tons, 
another of 20,000 tons, and three others of from 17,000 to 
20,000 tons. At the beginning of 1907 England owned 54 
ships of over 10,000 tons, 21 belonging to the White Star Line, 
the largest the Adriatic and Baltic, with 25,000 and 23,900 tons 
respectively, but the Lusitania and the Mauretania, of the 
Cunard Line, each of $2,500 tons, have since put all competitors 
into the shade. 

While no expense has been spared to increase Germany’s 
maritime trade by the building of larger &nd faster vessels, 
there has been vast expenditure upon the improvement of 
harbour and dock accommodation. There is not a coast or 
river port that has not of late years sunk large sums in the 
increase of its shipping trade possibilities, and some of them are 
at the present time engaged in ambitious schemes of the kind. 

Quays and wharves are being provided large enough to meet 
the probable requirements of many years to come, and their 
equipment—their sidings, railway connections, warehouses, 
arrangements for loading and unloading, &c.—are as perfect 
as they can be made. 

When in 1888 Hamburg surrendered its freedom of trade 
and joined the Imperial Customs Union it received as solatium 
the sum of two and a half million pounds as a contribution 
towards the cost of extensive new harbours and docks which 
became necessary. Since then its maritime trade has enor- 
mously increased. Bremen is similarly engaged upon large 
dock extensions and river improvements, both in that port and 
at Bremerhaven, lower down the Weser, which by the time 
they are completed, many years hence, will have cost eight 
and a half million pounds. This prosperous City State plans 
not only new harbours but anewtown. Near Bremerhaven it has 
acquired, by exchange with the Prussian State and by purchase, 
an area of about 1,470 acres, upon which docks and quays are 
to be constructed, and building land is to be laid out for a 
community of from 20.000 to 25,000 inhabitants. Hitherto 


72 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


the economic development of the Free State has necessarily led 
to outgrowths upon the adjacent Prussian territory. Bremen 
wishes to grow within its own borders, and the harbour scheme 
which has been undertaken is intended to achieve that end. 
The new docks will take the largest vessels afloat or likely to be 
built for many years to come, and, following the example of 
Mannheim, a special area is to be set aside for industrial works 
—grain and oil mills, factories, &c.—which will be provided 
with ample water and railway facilities. Another part of the 
project is the construction of a canal on the Upper Weser at a 
cost of £380,000. The population of the entire Free State 
in 1905 was 263,440, so that the contemplated expenditure 
to which the authorities have pledged themselves on account 
of this bold undertaking is over £32 per head. 

The river harbours, and especially those which are accessible 
from the sea, are being developed with no less energy. The 
enterprise of Mannheim is particularly interesting as an ex- 
ample of what a German inland river town is prepared to do 
to safeguard its prosperity. Mannheim is situated upon the 
Rhine, 160 miles above Cologne, and is the last port at which 
the larger Rotterdam river boats are able to call with full 
cargoes. In the past it was more a commercial than an 
industrial town, being a great entrepot for the trade of Central 
Germany and the South. The project of the Main-Rhine canal 
and the prospect of the deepening before long of the Rhine as 
far as Basel, implying the decrease of Mannheim’s importance 
as a great transit trade centre, convinced the municipal 
authorities some years ago that the town would have to rely 
upon industrial enterprise more than it had hitherto done. 

Accordingly, in 1895, they bought an estate of 350 acres 
of undeveloped and in part marshy land north of the town and 
near to the river, and laid out the larger portion of it as an 
industrial area, constructing alongside of it docks, quays, and 
railway communications, equipped with the most modern appli- 
ances for loading and unloading vessels, enabling the factories 
and warehouses to be erected to receive their raw materials 
by water, and to be in direct contact with the inland markets. 
The scheme involved the town in an outlay of £322,000, equal 
to £3 10s. per head of its then population, but it has succeeded 
beyond the highest expectations o1 its originators. Almost the 


FOREIGN TRADE AND SHIPPING 73 


whole of the industrial area is already occupied by large works, 
the capital sunk by the municipality has come back with 
interest, the industry and the trade of the town have greatly 
benefited, and in ten years (1895 to 1905) the population of 
Mannheim (without counting 14,288 inhabitants added by 
incorporation) increased from 105,399 to 149,525, equivalent 
to 41 per cent. The spirit in which the project was undertaken 
is shown by the following words taken from a statement made 
by the municipal authority on the subject: ‘“‘ The municipality 
has given an undertaking to the State (Baden) that it will look 
for no direct profit from the undertaking, and so will make the 
financial standpoint subsidiary to the economic. Not only does 
it renounce financial advantage, but it is ready where necessary 
to refrain from covering its bare costs. The only reward of 
its sacrifice which the town seeks is the economic development 
which will be experienced owing to the prosperity of industry and 
trade.’ The success of the undertaking has, none the less, been 
so complete that a further enterprise on the same lines is now 
contemplated. 

Frankfort-on-the-Main, with water facilities less favourable, 
is no less progressive in its own way. Since 1886 this town had 
a large commercial dock as well as a coal dock. Before these 
docks were constructed the trade in and out by water only 
amounted to 150,000 tons; four years later it had increased 
to 700,000 tons, and in 1905 it was 1,565,000 tons, so that 
Frankfort took the fifth place amongst the 53 Rhine ports, its 
trade far exceeding that of Cologne and Dusseldorf. About 
a third of Frankfort’s river trade consists of transit merchandise 
which is transhipped from or to the higher reaches of the Main 
canal, which beyond Frankfort is now only navigable by shallow 
boats. Half of the entire trade is in coal and coke. During 
recent years the trade of Frankfort has increased so greatly 
that the capacity of the existing docks is taxed to the utmost, 
and extensions are necessary. ‘ 

These docks, which lie below the town, cannot, however, 
be increased, since on one side they abut on populous districts, 
and on the other are blocked by locks, so a new dock is to 
be constructed above the town on the right (Frankfort) bank 
of the river, at a cost of £2,850,000. ‘The area of land to 
be acquired is 750 acres, with a length on ihe river side of 


74 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


2% miles, and a depth inland of from 1,950 to 2,400 yards. 
Railway connections will join on to the trunk lines. There 
are to be four large mercantile docks with a timber dock. The 
largest. dock will be 1,400 by 53 yards, a second will be 1,300 
by 80 yards, two others will be 870 by 48 yards, and the 
timber dock will have an area of 264 acres. As at Mannheim, 
an extensive Hinterland is to be reserved for factories, and it 
is hoped that a thriving industrial quarter will in time spring 
up here. Of the estimated cost of the scheme it is expected 
that at least £1,950,000 will come back by the sale of sites, 
so that the docks will only cost some £925,000, representing 
£50,000 interest per annum, which will be covered by dues 
and rents. It is expected that the first half of the project will 
be completed by the spring of 1910, and the whole works seven 
years later. 

Lower down the river Dusseldorf is constructing a new dock, 
1,930 yards long by 65 yards wide at the base, with a large 
petroleum depét, and is extending the bonded dock. New 
docks are also projected at Duisburg, and the existing muni- 
cipal harbour there has been amalgamated with the State 
harbour at Ruhrort and placed under State administration. 

What is being done on the Rhine is taking place on other 
important rivers, like the Elbe, Weser, and Oder, and even on 
the minor streams. While the States are deepening the 
rivers and building new canals, the towns situated upon 
navigable waterways are everywhere showing their faith in the 
future of water transit by increasing and improving their 
harbour and dock facilities on a bold scale. The extent to 
which the two largest rivers, the Rhine and the Elbe, are 
used for commerce may be judged by the fact that during 1905 
no fewer than 20,756 vessels of all sizes, with a cargo, exclusive 
of raft timber, of 9,730,000 tons, entered or cleared from the 
twin towns of Mannheim and Ludwigshafen, on the former 
river; while 17,988 vessels, with a cargo of 3,654,000 tons, 
entered or cleared from the two Elbe harbours of Magdeburg 
and Schandau. 


CHAPTER V 


THE PERSONAL EQUATION 


Industrial Germany the child of industrial England—Early English enter- 
prise in Germany-—-Cobden’s prophecies in 1838—German commercial 
enthusiasm—The first generation of industrialists—The love of system— 
Reasons for German success—The German standard of life—-Lower 
salaries and wages—Modern industrial plant—Industrial concentration— 
Germany and America compared—‘‘ Mixed” versus ‘‘ pure’’ iron works— 
Germans not inventive but imitative and adaptive—Consideration for 
customers’ wishes—Government encouragement and help—The State 
railways—Inland waterways—lInternational exhibitions—The central 
agency for industry in Hesse—The Emperor’s influence—Chambers of 
Commerce, their constitution and functions—The industrial associations 
—Foreign trade agencies—The German theory of trading—The com- 
mercial traveller. 


OMMERCIAL and industrial Germany is the Germany 
which possesses most interest for English people at the 
present time. We should, of course, have preferred that it had 
continued to concentrate attention upon the production of music, 
poetry, plays, and philosophy, and had left us to provide the 
world with machines, cloth, and cotton. As it has chosen to 
turn trader it is well worth while to study the question, How 
has this economic change been brought about—what are the 
forces which have been at work, the methods which have been 
employed ? 

And, first, allowance is never sufficiently made for the fact 
that industrial Germany is largely the child of industrial Eng- 
land. We have created the rival of whose competition we now 
complain. Some time ago the Cologne Gazette reminded its 
readers that ‘“‘It was Englishmen who in Germany first took 
in hand the construction of railways, gas works, tramways, and 


machine shops; who supplied to these enterprises the ample 
15 


76 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


resources of British capital ; and who thus acted as the pioneers 
of German material development.’ This is a generalisation 
which it would be possible to illustrate in all sorts of ways. 
Water was given to Berlin and Hamburg, among other towns, 
by Englishmen, and the latter town perpetuates its benefactor in 
the name of one of its streets. An English gas company, estab- 
lished many years ago, still supplies a special reserve of Berlin, and 
carries on undertakings in other Continental towns. Evidence 
of English pioneer enterprise in street locomotion survives in 
the naturalisation of the word ‘‘ tramway” in more than one 
German town. The cotton and woollen and engineering in- 
dustries largely owed their introduction to English energy and 
capital. Many old firms in all these industries still trade with 
English names, though no Englishmen are now associated with 
them, and Mulhausen, the South German seat of the cotton 
trade, has its Manchester Street. 

There occurs in an overlooked report of the eventful meeting 
of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, held on December 13, 
1838, which proved the prelude to the anti-Corn Law movement, 
a speech in which ‘‘ Mr. Richard Cobden, calico printer,’’ fore- 
told the day when the weapons which English enterprise and 
example were then placing in German hands would be turned 
against ourselves with fatal effect. 

‘‘He had made” (he said) ‘‘the tour of Germany lately, 
and had given some attention to the progress of manufactures 
in the countries through which he had passed. He would 
allude to an industry which was making great progress, and 
which had struck him as one of the most ominous signs he 
had witnessed. He alluded to the great increase in the manu- 
facture of machinery abroad under the auspices of English 
mechanics. Previous to the time of passing the Corn Law in 
1828 the manufacturers and spinners of this country, anxious to 
share the monopoly of the landholders in some shape, pressed 
for a prohibition of the exportation of machinery, and it was 
granted. The artisan, who had been previously interdicted 
from emigrating, now demanded a law to enable him to carry 
his labour to the best market, and this, of course, was granted. 
The artisan left this country to teach the foreign spinner how to 
organise his mill, and was then sent home to reap the effects in 
a restricted market for his industry. 


THE PERSONAL EQUATION 77 


“But now the demand arises for the makers of machinery, 
and the same process is going on of instructing the foreigner 
in making spinning-frames that was formerly done in spinning 
cotton. Whilst at Dresden he was shown over a large machine- 
making establishment by an Englishman, who took him into a 
large room filled with machinery for spinning flax, with Gore 
and Wesley’s patent improvements. ‘This,’ he said, ‘was 
brought out from England at an expense of 35,000 dollars 
(thalers) for models, and I am engaged to superintend the 
copying of it.’ At Chemnitz, also in Saxony, he visited a large 
establishment, organised and conducted by English mechanics, 
for the manufacture of machinery. He found at Prague, in 
Bohemia, an establishment belonging to Englishmen for making 
machinery for manufacturers ; and at Vienna there were two of 
our countrymen accommodated under an Imperial roof carrying 
on a similar trade. At Elberfeld and Aix-la-Chapelle he also 
found large machine-making businesses conducted by Englishmen. 
At Liége there was a similar concern, the largest in the world, 
belonging to Mr. Cockerell, who was born in Haslingden, and 
who employs nearly 4,000 hands; and at Zurich he found the 
large establishment of Mr. Esher, with an Englishman at the 
head of the foundry and another at the head of the forge, casting 
five tons of iron a day, brought from England, into spindles, 
rollers, and wheels for the spinners and manufacturers of Austria, 
Saxony, and Bavaria. In almost every large town there were 
English mechanics instructing the natives to rival us.”’ 

The process which to Cobden seventy years ago appeared so 
sinister was continued far into last century. Englishmen, their 
enterprise, intelligence, and capital were welcome so long as 
they were needed. Those were the days of Germany’s appren- 
ticeship, and never was learner more patient and industrious, 
Directly the apprentice was out of his time, however, he began 
business on his own account, and his master was free to go, and 
go he did. We all know the rest. From manufacturing for 
their own use the Germans soon proceeded to supply other 
nations, and England lost control of markets in which it had 
for generations held an almost undisputed position. What it is 
urgent to know is how the Germans have succeeded in their 
policy of supplanting English industrialists and traders in 
foreign markets. 


"A 


78 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


More than anything else this progress is, of course, due 
to the fact that Germany, now in the first flush of material 
prosperity, is devoting itself to industrial and commercial 
pursuits with the enthusiasm and fervour of a nation determined 
to win its way to the front rank in every department of economic 
life. It may be a question whether on the whole trade is 
followed in England with the old zeal and application, or even 
the old respect. In Germany trade is a passion. There is no 
disposition there either to be ashamed of it or to give it a 
secondary place; it is not an incident in a man’s life, a variant 
on pleasure and sport, but the chief, primary, absorbing concern. 
The successful German business man, whether manufacturer or 
merchant, travels or goes to sea, lake, or mountain during the 
hot weeks of summer, but he does not find time for a second 
holiday in winter, and the institution of the ‘‘ week-end’ appears 
to him a symptom of national enervation and decline. For 
eleven months of the year he is chained to his factory, ware- 
house, or counting-house, and he takes this strenuous life as 
part of the natural order of things, not to be relaxed, if he 
would achieve his ultimate purpose. The head of one of the 
largest industrial undertakings in Germany, bearing a name 
known all over the world, said not long ago, ‘‘ For fifty years 
I have come to my factory as soon as my men in the morning 
and I have been the last to leave in the evening.”’ That has 
meant for him an average day of twelve hours—with necessary 
intervals—yet he has had his reward in the fact that he 
controls one of the largest and most prosperous works of the - 
kind in Europe. Nor does it belong either to company or 
syndicate. 

Further, in the main Germany is still in the first generation 
of its great industrialists. In saying this I do not overlook the 
fact that many of the largest undertakings in the iron and steel 
and engineering industries have a long lineage, and that in every 
industry there are firms—not always, however, the largest— 
that go back fifty, eighty, and even a hundred years. In general, 
however, the fact is as stated, and the consequence is that 
Germany is drawing upon reserves of energy which as yet show 
no sign of exhaustion. 4 

But this plodding and persistent endeavour of the Germans 
to come to the front has been supported by a skilful and even 


THE PERSONAL EQUATION 79 


masterly application of means to ends. While the average 
Englishman has been accustomed to regard commerce as a 
purely rule-of-thumb matter, the German has followed it as 
a science and an art, and in reality all the methods and measures 
which he has adopted in competing with his older rivals for the 
trade of the world may be reduced to one principle, characteristic 
of the Germans in so many ways, the application of a trained 
intelligence to the practical affairs of life. 

Broadly speaking, where the German outrivals his competitors 
it will be found that his success is due to one or other of three 
reasons—(1) the cheaper price of his goods, (2) their superior or 
at least more serviceable character, and (8) the more efficient 
arrangements which he makes for reaching and attracting 
purchasers. 

As to the first of these reasons, the German manufacturer is 
helped in his endeavour to produce cheaply by the fact that the 
entire standard of life is less pretentious than in England, and 
this holds good in every class of society. Luxury—comparative 
luxury—is making headway as money is accumulated more easily 
and more rapidly, but on the whole life is simpler, there is less 
personal indulgence, habits are less expensive, even amongst 
the wealthy class, than with us. The consequence is that the 
German manufacturer is contented with less profit than is 
expected in England. He has also for the present a great 
advantage in the smaller industrial salaries and wages which he 
has to pay. Recently an inquiry was made by the German 
Union of Technical Employees into the salaries received by its 
members, engineers and other officials in the engineering and 
electro-technical industry. Nearly 2,000 answers were received, 
and they showed that the salaries of 49 per cent. of these skilled 
men fell below £105 per annum; 12 per cent. received from 
£105 to £120, 12°5 per cent. from £120 to £135, and only 
25 per cent. above the last-named figure. Of late years the 
workman has successfully made large demands upon his em- 
ployer both in respect of wages and the hours of labour, but 
even yet the former are much lower, the latter much longer, 
than with us. Yet in fairness it should here be said that the 
workman enjoys very substantial compensation in the form of 
his three insurance benefits (sickness, accident, and old age), 
and that the statutory protection afforded to juvenile labour is 


80 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


greater than in England. Apparently the tendency of things 
should be still more to the German employer’s disfavour, though 
on the other hand it must be remembered that the adjustability 
of industry to its increasing burdens, within surprisingly elastic 
limits, has been proved over and over again in our own experi- 
ence. In Germany it was feared at one time that the Industrial 
Insurance Laws would severely handicap production and inde- 
finitely retard the progress of the export trade. This has not 
happened, however, for the period of Germany’s greatest stride 
forward as an industrial and mercantile country has synchronised 
with these beneficial laws. _ 

Meantime, the advantage which the German manufacturer 
enjoys in the matter of wages and hours is gradually disappearing, 
and it may be expected that in this respect the conditions of 
production will every year tend to become more equalised between 
the two countries. Not only are the costs of living steadily 
rising in Germany, but the strength of the trade unions con- 
tinually increases, and with their growth in numbers and 
influence both their demands and their ability to assert these 
demands become greater. The relations between capital and 
labour will, however, be treated separately and need not detain 
us here. | 

Much is due also to progressive methods and the use of 
thoroughly modern plant. Of Germany’s industrial works in 
general it may be said that if the worst are hopelessly behind 
the times and are only kept alive by local advantages—low 
wages as in rural districts, exceptional transport facilities, &¢.— 
the best can nowhere be surpassed. Theiron and steel industry | 
is probably the best illustration of the efforts made to produce 
under the most favourable conditions which modern machinery 
and technique allow. In an endeavour to explain the falling 
back of the United Kingdom into the third place as a producer 
of pig-iron a correspondent of The Times wrote on April 7, 1906 : 
‘‘ Among the chief reasons for the decrease in the British iron 
industry must be placed the tendency to adhere to antiquated 
methods of production among English manufacturers. As 
opposed to this the German ironmasters have known how to 
avail themselves fully of modern improvements in the technical 
details of the metallurgy of iron and in the practical operation 
of the blast furnaces. In fact, though during 1905 there were 


THE PERSONAL EQUATION 81 


fifty fewer blast furnaces in Germany than in Great Britain, the 
former country was able to produce no less than two million tons 
more of pig-iron than its rival, even with this great disadvantage 
in point of plant.” Thisis true; in 1886 the average production 
of a blast furnace in Germany was 16,500 tons, but by the 
building of larger furnaces and improved methods the pro- 
duction now reaches 40,000 tons. 

But this is not the only or the chief explanation of the 
German iron-master’s ability to produce so cheaply that he 
can make his way into every market. A still more important 
reason is the co-ordination of the various process of produc- 
tion. The owners of the large combined steel works know 
that it does not pay to saddle their half-manufactured mate- 
rial with transport costs of all kinds midway in the manu- 
facturing process, and pig-iron, steel-making and rolling are 
nowadays done under the same roof as part of an unbroken 
process. 

The pig-iron is conveyed direct into the Bessemer converter 
adjacent, and cast into ingots, and the ingots have no sooner 
cooled down sufficiently than they are at once passed into the 
rolling mill. 

In the process of rolling great improvements have been 
introduced. In many, perhaps most, works the ingots pass in 
and out of mills of different size, before they take the final form 
_ of rails, but in the more modern works this three- or fourfold 
process is shortened into one, for the rollers instead of lying 
side by side follow one another, so that the glowing ingot which 
passes from the furnace into the first grip of the mill comes 
out at the other end a finished rail ready to be cut to size and 
finished off. Where formerly ingots were cast which made two 
rails of 45 feet each ten rails of 65 feet can now be made out 
of the same ingot—a great economy in production and also a 
great economy in wastage. What such a combination of processes 
means in the saving of labour and fuel, as well as of capital, 
may easily be imagined. 

Not only so, but mechanical appliances are used nowadays to 
an extent that a few years ago would have seemed inconceivable. 
Menzel’s famous painting of the rolling-mill, in which bare- 
breasted workmen are shown grappling at close quarters with the 
glowing ingots, will soon represent an obsolete page of industrial 


82 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


history. As the fundamental maxim in the obtaining of the 
necessary raw material is the saving of cost by the elimination 
of the middle man at every stage in the process of production, so 
the fundamental maxim in the later and more costly processes 
is the saving of labour. In the latest works nothing is touched 
by the hand that can be done by mechanical means, and man 
and machine are brought into the nearest possible contact by 
the same expeditious and economical means. It follows, as a 
matter of course, that electricity is employed for every purpose 
to which it can be employed as a motive agent.* Even in 
the firing of furnaces, retorts, and boilers science has been 
introduced. The German technical schools which exist for the 
special benefit of the engineering trade have created a science 
of heating, the fundamental principle of which is to obtain a 
maximum amount of heat in the best and quickest way at a 
minimum cost. Finally, the gases which small works cannot 
employ and therefore waste are used by modern concerns for 
power and heating. When several years ago Herr von Moller, 
the then Prussian Minister of Commerce, visited the United 
States he found ‘‘ the technics of industry there to be in many 
respects very behindhand. ‘‘In general,’ he reported, ‘“‘ the 
large German works are in no way behind the American except 
in products for which Germany has no adequate market.” 
Incidentally also he thought America ‘‘ very careless about the 
life and health of the working classes; in the largest works 
the precautions against accident are of the most primitive kind.”’ 
Nevertheless, American managers are to be found in many 
German engineering works and American machinery in still 
more. 

This tendency to increased concentration, with a view to more 
economical production, has greatly stimulated the movement 
in favour of what are known as mixed works, the combination 
taking various forms, as, for example, ore and coal mines, 
ore mines and smelting works, smelting works and rolling works, 
or larger combinations still. The firm of Krupp produces, in 
fact, everything it requires in its engineering and ordnance 


* In April, 1906, there were in Prussia alone 5,955 engines with 883,364 horse- 
power used in the production of electricity. In 1903 the number of such 
engines was 5,160, with a horse-power of 623,334, so that there had in three 
years been an increase in power of 41-7 per cent. The largest use of electric 
power was in the engineering trade centres of the Rhineland. 


THE PERSONAL EQUATION 83. 


factories—ore, coal and coke, pig-iron, steel, rolled iron, and 
so on through every process to the finished product. 

The struggle between the ‘‘ mixed’”’ and ‘‘ pure’’ works has of 
late years been very severe in Rhineland and Westphalia, and 
particularly since the Coal and Steel Syndicates came on the 
scene, but this form of concentration is no new one either there 
or in Silesia. The great Stumm iron works owned ore mines 
as early as the eighteenth century. The firm of de Vendel have 
owned the same since 1797 and collieries since 1856 ; the Konig 
and Laura Smelting Company have had both ore mines and col- 
lieries since 1802; the Kattowitz Smelting Company has from 
the first had its own ore mines and collieries since 1789; the 
Gutehoffnungshutte at Osnabruck has mined its own ore since 
1810 and its coal since 1857; the Horder Verein has had ore 
mines since 1852 and coal mines since 1859; the Union 
‘Company at Dortmund has used its own ore and coal since 
1855; the Burbacher Hutte acquired ore mines in 1856; the 
Dillinger Hutte has had ore mines since 1828; the Georg- 
Marienhutte at Osnabruck has had both ore and coal since 
1859 ; the ‘‘ Deutscher Kaiser’? Company has had coal since 
1876, the Hoersch Company at Dortmund since 1898; and the 
Aix-la-Chapelle Smelting Company has had ore since 1892. 

In 1906 there were 41 mixed iron and rolling works or iron 
works owning their own collieries, and they together controlled 
three-quarters of the entire pig-iron production of the country, 
the greater part of the steel production, and three-quarters of 
the production of rolled goods, as well as one-quarter of the coal 
produced in the Ruhr basin. Of 1,200,000 workpeople employed 
in the iron industry it was estimated that 300,000 fell to the 
mixed works, eight alone employing 170,000 men. Ten of 
these works represented a capital of over twenty-five million 
pounds, the largest being Krupp, Thyssen, Bochumer Verein, 
Horder Verein, Rheinische Stahlwerke, Gutehoffnungshutte, 
Phoenix, and the Laurahutte in Silesia. 

Against powerful companies like these the smaller ‘‘ pure”’ 
works are powerless to compete, restricted as they are in 
resources and unable to take advantage of the economies in 
every direction which are within reach of the great combined 
works. The number of ‘“‘pure’”’ rolling works is now about 
60, 24 of them in the northern part of the Lower Rhenish- 


84 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Westphalian district, 16 in the central part of that district, 
the Berg country and the centre of the small iron goods 
industry; 10 south of the district, in Siegerland, and in the 
west of the Rhineland, while of the other two one is in the 
Saar district and the other in Upper Silesia. The rolling works 
which most feel the competition of the ‘‘ mixed ”’ concerns are 
the plate and bar works; those for the present best able to hold 
their own are the wire and wire-goods works, but all are hard 
pressed, and that the more since the Steel Syndicate deliberately 
favours the large combined undertakings, and sooner or later the 
latter will undoubtedly hold the field. Herr Kirdorf, the 
director of the Steel Syndicate, recently expressed the opinion 
that ‘‘The entire economic development necessarily leads to 
mixed undertakings; for a company can only prosper per- 
manently when besides manufacturing finished goods it also 
produces its own raw materials.’’ A recent writer suggests an 
alternative to the extinction of the ‘‘ pure’? works. Dr. H. 
Voelker, who was formerly a member of the directorate of the 
Steel Union, in his book ‘‘ Die deutsche Eisen und Stahl- 
industrie,’’ writes :— 

‘There are three ways open to the pure rolling works of 
improving their position. In the first place they may readjust 
their plant more rationally by turning attention to the manu- 
facture of fine products. The large mixed works can do this 
less easily, since the directing heads are too much occupied to be 
able to devote themselves to the details of production. ...A 
second possibility for the maintenance of the pure rolling works 
is the formation of a union with the mixed competitive works 
for the purpose of increasing the prices of bar-iron, wire, and 
fine plates. Hitherto it has only been possible to establish 
unions for fine plates and wire, and the first of these has been 
dissolved, while the efforts to establish a bar-iron union have 
invariably had but brief and transient success. The third way 
of improving the position of the pure rolling works is to join a 
mixed works, for example, a Siemens-Martin works, either by 
entering into a financial union or by amalgamating altogether. 
In this way a certain distribution of labour could be arranged 
between the pure and the mixed works by arranging that each 
concern should only produce the articles which, owing to its 
special equipment or its geographical position or other local 


THE PERSONAL EQUATION 85 


circumstances, it can produce under the most favourable 
conditions.”’ 

Of these alternatives the third seems to offer the only real 
prospect of success, but the resort to fusion proposed means that 
the ‘‘ pure”’ works as such will exist no longer, in which event 
the aim of the Steel Syndicate will be achieved. 

This, however, is not the only form of industrial concentra- 
tion. It is carried on in directions quite uninfluenced by the 
syndicate movement. In the town of Dusseldorf in 1907, for 
example, there were 463 distinct undertakings, combined in 
124 companies. This combination was naturally most deve- 
loped in the iron and steel industry, which is there supreme, 
one undertaking in which was engaged in the production of iron 
and steel pipes, plates, puddling iron, steel ingots, wire and bar- 
iron, &c. The largest wire-rolling works combined fourteen 
branches, including wire-drawing, bar-iron rolling, puddling, 
wire rope, Martin, shoe-iron, and wire nail works, also an iron 
foundry, a workshop for electric machinery, drawn zine works, a 
box factory, &c. 

The two other reasons may be dealt with together. The 
German is not an inventive genius, but he excels in adaptation, 
which under ordinary circumstances is a gift of even greater 
practical value than inventiveness. The great inventors have 
seldom become rich men; the prizes have generally fallen to 
the men who have had just originality enough to recognise a 
good idea when they saw it, to adapt and develop it, and to turn 
it to immediate account. 

In their beginnings the German textile and engineering indus- 
tries, and even the chemical industry in which Germany specially 
excels, all owed at least as much to foreign ideas and influences as 
to native talent. The loss to English industry owing to its neglect 
to recognise the commercial value of chemistry is incalculable 
and can never be made good. Nevertheless, even at the present 
day it is a common complaint that there are English dyers who 
will not bring theory (in other words, science) to bear upon 
their practice, but persist in the old guess-work which was good 
enough for their fathers and the race of customers they had to 
serve half a century ago. Not long ago one such dyer of the old 
school had the chance of a large commission provided he could 
give a certain shade. ‘‘I can do it pretty near,” he said, 


4 | 
86 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


‘‘ But it must be exactly true.” ‘‘ Well, I cannot promise to a 
nicety, but it shall be a good job.” And that was all he would 
or could say. The work went abroad. 

The German chemical industry, perhaps more than any other, 
owes its expansion and prosperity to science and scientific 
methods. It is estimated that in the chemical manufactories of 
Germany there is on an average a university-trained chemist to 
every forty workpeople—a ratio of science to labour probably 
excelled in no other country in the world. A recent German 
writer makes the proud boast that ‘‘ empiricism has absolutely 
disappeared from present-day methods of production ; instead of 
the old plan of ‘ trying this and that’ we see at the head of 
our works men who would be an ornament to any chair of 
chemistry, surrounded by their staffs of thoroughly-trained 
chemists. The large manufactories have well-equipped and often 
model laboratories for scientific research which it is a pleasure 
to work in. Nowhere is the alliance between science and technics 
so intimate as in Germany, and no one doubts that to this fact 
is due the pre-eminence of the German chemical industry.’’* 

A further secret of the German manufacturer’s success is his 
studied endeavour to meet the needs and wishes of those whom 
he seeks to make his customers. He has put away from him 
the antiquated idea that the consumer exists for the producer 
and must be satisfied with what the latter offers him, and instead 
he acts on the principle that the buyer has a right to have what 
he wants, if it can be made, and that it is the manufacturer’s 
business to supply it. It is impossible to say how much trade 
has left England, never, perhaps, to return, owing to obstinate 
refusal to recognise this not unreasonable principle. A leading 
frm in a great English textile industry is reported, before 
experience tardily taught it a painful lesson, to have boasted that 
it never modified its manufactures, or the mode of placing them 
on the market, under any circumstances. ‘‘ Our goods are made 
in these colours and these lengths,”’ it said, ‘‘ and those who are not 
pleased can go elsewhere.’ In due time they went elsewhere, 
and now the problem facing this firm, and many another in like 
predicament, is how to get those rebellious buyers back. 

In Germany it is different. Its strength in manufactures and 
trade, as in so many other things, lies in attention to little 

* Dr, A. Steigel ‘‘ Die Chemische Industrie,” p. 8, 


THE PERSONAL EQUATION 87 


things. The buyer’s requirements and tastes, however various and 
changeable, and not the manufacturer’s traditions and prejudices, 
determine what sort of goods are made, and how these goods are 
placed in the merchant’s hands. And the merchant is equally 
alive to his patron’s convenience and his own interests. He 
does not expect foreigners to be expert in the German language, 
but addresses them in their own tongues—often, no doubt, with 
peculiar variations of his own—adapts his own coinage, weights, 
measures to theirs, and if letters will not answer their purpose 
the merchant goes himself or sends some one who is well able to 
do his business for him. In short, the story of the first check 
to British exports relatively to those of Germany (for we have 
learned much) was largely a story of opportunities lost or 
wilfully neglected—mostly the latter. 

And yet, when all the points in which the German industrialist 
and merchant excel have been pointed out—and for the most part 
they are little points, which yet when put together make a large 
ageregate—it would be a great mistake to suppose that English 
enterprise and business acumen are lightly regarded in Germany. 
On the contrary, a profound respect is everywhere entertained 
for England as an industrial pioneer, and it yet stands to most 
Germans as a model to be imitated: he must be a very up-to- 
date manufacturer indeed who will venture to disparage the 
country from which he has learned so much. 

Again, both industry and trade receive encouragement and 
practical help from the Governments of the various States, 
and within its more limited power from the Imperial Government. 
The idea that a German Ambassador is a sort of superior 
commercial agent is, of course, absurd, yet the fiction had its 
origin in a fact, which is that German diplomatic representatives 
abroad are very properly alive to the close connection of 
national trade and national prosperity, and are not slow to do 
industry a service when the opportunity occurs. Protective 
legislation apart, the fact that the railways are, with insignificant 
exceptions, State undertakings enables the Governments to 
render a great service both to industry and agriculture by regula- 
ting transport charges according to special circumstances, geo- 
graphical and otherwise, while the export trade is systematically 
assisted by means of low preferential tariffs specially designed 
to enable the home manufacturers to enter foreign markets on 


88 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


favourable conditions. It is not always possible to strike an 
absolutely fair balance between one industry and another, yet on 
the whole the trading world is thoroughly satisfied with the way 
in which the railways are administered, and its grievances are for 
the most part spasmodic and relate to transient defects for 
which the “ fiscus’’ is really as little responsible as the com- 
plainants. Where a good case for the amelioration of existing 
traffic conditions and charges can be made out, especially if 
supported by official or other responsible authority, the district 
railway administration is generally ready to make reasonable 
concessions. The result is that the question of State versus 
private railways does not exist in Germany, even in the most 
academic form. 

The State also shows its concern for the promotion of trade 
by the construction of inland water-ways, a branch of navigation 
which in Germany is now seldom touched by private enterprise. 
The canal connecting the Baltic with the North Sea, opened 
in 1891, is the greatest State undertaking of the kind yet 
carried out. Prussia alone has during the past two decades 
spent many millions of pounds sterling in the construction 
of new canals and the canalisation of rivers, and the projects 
of the kind at present in hand—including the Rhine and 
Elbe canal and smaller channels in the south and east of the 
country—are variously estimated to cost from twenty to 
thirty millions more. There is also this difference between 
the canals of Germany and those of this country—that the 
former are generally navigable by steamers while the latter 
are not. 

How the Central and State Governments help industry on 
the occasion both of national and international exhibitions 
has been brought home to English commercial men on many 
occasions.* Some of the States maintain, and still more 

* Describing the German exhibits at the St. Louis Exhibition, a corre- 
spondent of the London Times wrote: ‘‘The Government has already 
authorised the expenditure of about four and a half million marks (£225,000), 
while State Governments, cities, towns, groups of artists, and private firms 
have perhaps spent as much more. The co-operation between artists, artisans, 
and manufacturers is shown better than by any other country. The Emperor 
himself has manifested the deepest interest throughout. He did not confine 
himself entirely to mere display, as many thought would be the case when 
Prince Henry was sent to America, but his activity is so much in evidence, and 


in so many departments, as to give the impression that the exhibits have been 
made by order. The single mind is seen throughout. The Emperor took great 


THE PERSONAL EQUATION 89 


subsidise, stationary and travelling exhibitions of industrial 
products within their own borders. The Grand Duchy of Hesse 
is one of the least of the States, with a population of under a 
million and a quarter, and with but a single large town, yet it 
maintained, and has maintained since 1836—when its in- 
habitants were only half their present number—a Central 
Agency for Industry which serves as a national information 
bureau on industrial and commercial questions. As time grew 
its functions broadened and for many years it has also controlled 
the industrial and technical instruction of the State, maintaining a 
large library and industrial museum and a chemical laboratory, 
and conducting examinations for masters and journeymen in 
various industries. In 1906 the Central Agency had 186 
technical schools under its care, being more than one to every 
thousand inhabitants. Wurtemberg, in proportion to its 
population and wealth, does even more for industry and 
commerce on much the same lines, though every State has 
national institutions which by different means achieve the same 
ends. The general question of technical instruction will be 
treated separately. 

Nor is the Emperor’s direct encouragement wanting. Witness 
the following appeal to national pride and ambition spoken by 
him at Memel so recently as September, 1907 :— 

“The powerful, surprising, and almost incomprehensibly 
rapid progress of our newly united fatherland in all domains, the 
astounding development of our trade and commerce, the mag- 
nificent inventions in the domain of science and technics, are 
a result of the reunion of the German races in one common 
fatherland. The more we are able to wrest for ourselves a 
prominent position in all parts of the world the more should our 
nation in every class and industry remember that the working of 
Divine Providence is here manifested. If our Lord God had not 
entrusted to us great tasks He would not have conferred upon us 
great capacities.”’ 

Industry, commerce, and shipping all owe much to the en- 
couragement which the Emperor has given them. There is 
not an industry whose conditions he has not studied by re- 
pleasure in inspecting several of the exhibits, and they were set up in museums 
to enable him to see them. He made himself familiar with many of them in a 


way that perhaps no other ruler or public man in the world has seen fit to do. 
The result is notable in many respects.’’ 


90 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


peated visits to prominent works all over the country; he 
knows every shipbuilding yard on the coast, and he has followed 
the growth of the mercantile marine with close interest. As 
he speeds his ships of war across the ocean, the Emperor is not 
slow to avow that the protection and extension of German 
trade are a chief concern of the navy; when a great shipping 
firm launches a new ocean greyhound, an Imperial telegram 
of congratulation will reach the guests at the luncheon-table ; 
and it is only a short time ago that by special favour he allowed 
one of his naval adjutants to join the board of directors of the 
largest of the Hamburg lines. 7 

While, however, the State is never slow to encourage national 
enterprise, the mercantile classes have not lost the spirit of self- 
reliance. In its dealings with the railway and with all Govern- 
ment authorities the trading world is greatly helped by the 
admirable Chambers of Commerce which exist in all the large 
towns and industrial districts. A short time ago the announce- 
ment was published in English newspapers from Washington 
that the United States Secretary of State had ‘‘ decided that 
it will be impossible to accept statements by British Chambers 
of Commerce as prima facie evidence as to the value of exports 
to this country, as can be done in the case of similar organisa- 
tions of Germany under the new regulations, and the reason of 
this is that the German Chambers are quasi-official organisa- 
tions, while the British are not.” It is not correct to say 
that the German Chambers of Commerce are even partially 
official in character if by that be meant that they are in any 
way Government institutions. They are, however, in continual 
contact with the Government, which indeed consults them upon 
all questions directly affecting the interests of commerce, and 
for this reason, as well as because of their representative 
constitution, they carry great weight. 

Each State has its own Chamber of Commerce Law, though 
the basis, constitution, and general mode of operations are in 
all essential details everywhere the same. A Chamber of 
Commerce is elected by the whole of the registered trading firms 
in a district, and its funds are as a rule derived from a small 
tax upon these firms, forming a percentage of the trade or 
occupation tax (Gewerbestewer) which they pay to the local 
commune for its administrative purposes. In its inner govern- 


THE PERSONAL EQUATION 91 


ment a Chamber of Commerce is independent of outside 
influences. The presidency it usually a rotating honour shared 
in turn by the leading members of the industrial and mercantile 
community, executive and committees meet periodically, but 
most of the practical work is done by permanent officials, the 
number of whom depends upon the size of the town and the 
importance and wealth of the industries represented. Thus a 
powerful Chamber of Commerce like that of Berlin has a number 
of separate departments each under an expert, dealing with 
subjects like customs duties and taxation, traffic arrangements 
and transport charges, export trade, patents, banks and finance, 
and legislation, and it is the business of the responsible official to 
know all that is to be found out upon every phase of the subjects 
under his care. Being in close and continual contact with the 
life of trade, being in fact its very eyes and ears, the Chambers 
of Commerce are able to render to the business classes invalu- 
able service, and as a means of communication between these 
classes and the Government and other official bodies they 
perform functions of great importance. They are essentially 
practical, working institutions, never appealing to the public, 
as a rule keeping aloof from politics, yet even if tempted 
now and then to take sides in their annual reports for or 
against the fiscal policy now in the ascendant, doing so as a 
pure matter of business and not as one of partisanship; and for 
the rest using every opportunity of defending and furthering the 
economic interests entrusted to their keeping. For example, 
the Berlin Chamber of Commerce has just published a handbook 
telling commercial travellers everything they need to know 
about the commercial laws and usages, railway regulations, 
customs regulations, &c., of all civilised countries in the world. 
The use and value of these Chambers of Commerce cannot be .- 
more forcibly proved than by the fact that in their several towns 
and districts the foremost leaders of industry find time, and 
think it worth while, to take an active part in their deliberations. 

In many towns the ordinary Chambers of Commerce are 
supplemented by Industrial Associations in which manufacturing 
interests are specially represented, though in so far as these 
associations seek to enlist the co-operation of the working 
classes their success is nowadays less marked than fifty years 
ago, when the relations between capital and labour were less 


92 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


strained. It is no uncommon thing for the entire technical 
instruction arrangements of a town to be dependent upon 
societies of employers, and in Berlin much of the best work in 
this direction is still done under the direction and at the cost 
of the old Corporation of Merchant Elders. Permanent ex- 
hibitions of industrial and art-industrial works organised by 
such societies are to be found in all large towns. 

Foreign trade is specially promoted by the existence of 
Associations of Export Firms in many of the large industrial 
towns, especially of Prussia and Central Germany, which main- 
tain agents who represent various undertakings in countries the 
trade with which does not justify the sending out of special 
travellers, and which keep their members well posted as to 
arrangements for the transport of goods, tariffs, and other 
charges, and conclude collective arrangements where possible 
with shipping firms at special rates. A short time ago the 
great industrialists established a Central Information Agency 
for Foreign Trade. 

A striking illustration of the German merchant’s consuming 
zeal in the prosecution of the industrial conquest of the world 
is afforded by a unique society which has now existed at Stettin 
for over thirty years. Directly the Empire was established, the 
wide-awake merchants of that thriving port drew the conclusion 
that their chance of fame and fortune had come, and that it 
would be their own fault if it was allowed to slip by. >A Com- 
mercial Association was formed for the purpose of promoting 
local trade, but also for equipping the rising youth of Stettin 
with ‘such mercantile knowledge as would enable it to go 
abroad and work in the interests of the town. After undergoing 
suitable preparation likely young men were despatched to the 
British Colonies, the United States, and other countries, charged 
with the mission of furthering the trade of Stettin, by sending 
home periodical reports and generally touting for business; and 
towards the cost of outfit and of maintenance until he could 
settle down each received the sum of £75. The rules of the 
Association provide, in fact, that ‘‘ those members who receive 
a grant shall give a solemn promise, accompanied by grasping 
the hand of the president, that they will conduct themselves 
as worthy of the confidence and trust placed in them by the 
Association, and that they will make every effort to obtain as 


THE PERSONAL EQUATION 93 


much information and knowledge as possible, to be employed 
and utilised to the benefit of the Stettin trade.’ Since the 
Commercial Association was formed, a multitude of commercial 
pioneers of this kind have been sent by Stettin to the great 
purchasing countries across the ocean, and that the merchants 
of Stettin are satisfied with the results is conclusively proved 
by the fact that the enterprising society still lives and carries 
on its novel work to-day. 

The whole theory of trading as understood in Germany is that 
if business is worth having it is worth seeking. To suppose that 
the two hundred million pounds of trade (manufactured goods 
alone accounting for one-half), which have been added to their 
exports during the last quarter of a century have simply fallen 
into the laps of German manufacturers, without thought or effort 
on their part, would be to misunderstand entirely the secret of 
Germany’s success. All the trade which has been gained in 
competition with other countries had to be wooed before it could 
be won, and Germany did its suitorship in person and not 
through the post. The value which belongs to direct repre- 
sentation abroad is best understood by the great firms, though 
it is a commonplace of the entire trading world. It is not 
surprising that the Essen cannon works should have spokesmen 
and touters at every seat of government, but there are plenty 
of enterprising engineering companies, whose productions have 
to compete with those of a hundred rivals, which maintain the 
same system of worldwide agencies. One of those, working 
from North Prussia, has a hundred independent offices or direct 
representatives in foreign countries. 

For some time a Colonial School established by private 
enterprise, but with State encouragement, has been carried on 
in Berlin for the purpose of affording special instruction to 
young men desirous of settling in the German colonies, either 
as agriculturists, planters, or merchants. Such instruction is 
given to residential pupils for the small sum of from £40 to £60 
a year, and to non-residential pupils for from £15 to £30 a 
year. 

This, then, is the rival whose energies have in recent years 
been so successfully exercised in that sphere of industrial and 
commercial enterprise which we had been accustomed to regard 
as peculiarly our own, and these are some of the methods by 


94 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY a 


which it has fitted itself for the competitive task. England 
must not expect either that the efforts will be relaxed, or that 
the methods which have been employed to such signal purpose 
will be abandoned, unless, indeed, for others still more effective. 
While, however, Germany is no longer a force to be neglected, 
it is also not a force that must of necessity be feared, so long as 
it is encountered with at least equal weapons of skill, determina- 
tion, and resource. 


CHAPTER VI 
TECHNICAL EDUCATION 


Value of technical education in the service of industry—Moderate cost of 
German technical schools—The schools of Saxony cited: their number, 
variety, and age—Reliance upon private effort and sacrifice—Enthusiasm 
for technical education in Saxony—Emulation shown by the schools. 


ERMANY had no sooner begun its career as an industrial 

export country than it felt at once the full benefit of the 
system of education which it had adopted long before most of 
its rivals had learned to regard public instruction as a serious 
affair of the State. Thirty years ago, when industry stood on 
the threshold of a new era, destined to prove more brilliant than 
any in the past, when the incalculable value of chemistry as a 
marketable science was beginning to be recognised, and electri- 
city was proving its illimitable possibilities as an economic agent, 
Germany more than any other European country found itself 
fully equipped by education for entering upon a fierce competi- 
tive struggle, under entirely new conditions, for the commercial 
mastery of the world. Its technical colleges turned out, as 
by word of command, an army of trained directors, engineers, 
and chemists, armed with the last discovered secret of science 
and with her last uttered word concerning the industrial pro- 
cesses and methods which henceforth were to hold the field. In 
the same way its elementary schools—in which, in Prussia and 
Saxony at least, compulsory attendance and free instruction 
had been in operation for the greater part of a century—held 
in readiness for its factories and workshops an unlimited supply 
of intelligent workmen, who had not only acquired a liberal 
education, as elementary education goes, but who, even as 


apprentices, brought to the exercise of their crafts a useful 
95 


96 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


grounding in technical knowledge and often a certain manual 
dexterity gained in the continuation or the professional school. 

Germany's advantage in this respect was immense, and it 
explains more than any other cause the rapidity and stability of 
its progress. What is remarkable is the fact that while these 
preparations for the coming industrial struggle were being 
carried on in the eyes of the whole world, the whole world 
ignored them. And yet the best of Germany’s large technical 
schools go back fifty and sixty years, and many of them are more 
than a century old. To-day these schools are legion, for they 
are found in all the large towns and not infrequently in very 
small ones, and they cover the entire range of industry and 
industrial art. 

Nor is the cost of technical instruction at all proportionate to 
the work done. Megalomania has been the bane of not a few 
institutions of the greatest public advantage in England. We 
are apt to assume, as a matter of course, that large ideas must 
of necessity be realised on a large and ambitious scale. Pro- 
digious expense is the first consequence of this assumption, and 
failure, or at least limited success, is often the sequel. Germany 
possesses a multitude of technical colleges and schools of unsur- 
passed proportions, but expense is not allowed to tyrannise over 
utility. One will never find ornamental figure-heads in these 
institutions. The teachers are all severely practical, and the 
very best talent is obtainable—with no suspicion on either side 
of hunger pay—on terms which would be scouted as humiliating 
in England as professional expectations are in these days. 
What would be thought in this country of the managers of a 
large technical college for the building trades who offered a 
salary of £210, rising to £310, for the exclusive services of an 
architect, with university education, to have under his charge 
the departments for building construction, building materials, 
architecture, stone-cutting, draughtsmanship, and ornamental 
writing; or a salary of £175, rising to £260, for an engineer, 
also university trained, to have charge of the departments for 
building construction, building materials, mathematics, physics, 
geometry, statics, surveying, &c.? Such scales of remunera- 
tion of skilled service, which are, of course, instanced from real 
life, would with us excite the indignation of the professional 
Press, and would probably lead to questions in the House of 


TECHNICAL EDUCATION ie: 
Commons. But in Germany men of the highest competency 
ean be secured in any number for the best of the technical 
schools at moderate remuneration, because the standard of pro- 
fessional salaries is nowhere high, and also because there is 
always a laree and ready market for service of the kind, the 
result of which is an ample supply. These facts do not, of 
course, prove that Hnglish professional men are paid beyond 
their deserts. What they do prove is that technical institutions 
in Germany enjoy in this respect special and very important 
advantages. They are easier to establish and easier to maintain. 

The larger technical agencies apart, however, invaluable results 
are often achieved by the simplest and most inexpensive means— 
by the humble village class conducted in the winter evening 
hours by the light of the oil lamp in the low-roofed schoolroom ; 
by the travelling exhibition of samples of skilled handicraft 
which sets provincial ambitions aglow; by the itinerunt teacher 
who carries a vitalising store of rudimentary technical know- 
ledge from hamlet to hamlet and from farmhouse to farmhouse 
in the sequestered mountain districts where home industry is the 
main support of the population during half the year. For the 
most impressive fact about technical education as developed in 
Germany is its comprehensiveness; it is applied to every 
occupation in which it is better for a workman to have it than 
be without it. 7 

Almost any one of the larger States might be taken as an 
example of this deeply-rooted national belief in the value and 
necessity of technical training, for each has its special charac- 
teristics. Perhaps the best known technical institutions are in 
Prussia—institutions like the Royal Technical College at 
Charlottenburg, with its staff of several hundred teachers, and 
the School of Weaving at Crefeld—yet Saxony, Bavaria, 
Wurtemberg, and Baden have all distinguished themselves in 
this branch of education. As the technical schools of Saxony, 
however, depend to an exceptional degree upon the self-help of 
the towns and the industries they serve, they will possess special 
interest for English readers, and a brief account of them is given 
here. | 

In Saxony, almost more. than in any other German State, 
technical education may be said to have passed into the very 
life of the land and its people. And this is not surprising, for 


98 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


the oldest technical school goes back to the middle of the 
eighteenth century—the academy of mining at Freiberg, dating 
from 1766. Three years later the principle of obligatory educa- 
tion was introduced in Saxony, though it was not until 1805 that 
it was systematically enforced. Chemnitz had a school of indus- 
trial design as early as 1796, and early in the nineteenth century 
the first three schools for lace-makers were established, while the 
town of Annaberg originated the system of industrial continua- 
tion schools in 1823, being imitated by Zwickau in 1828, and 
by Chemnitz in 1829. All the best of Saxony’s technical 
institutions, indeed, have a long career of usefulness behind 
them. 

At the present time, disregarding altogether the regular 
schools—primary, continuation, middle, and higher—there are 
in this comparatively small country, upon a moderate computa- 
tion, no fewer than 360 special schools which are exclusively 
engaged in the imparting of technical knowledge of one kind and 
another. The population of Saxony was in 1905 four and a half 
millions, so the average of one systematic technical school to 
every 18,000 of the inhabitants, adult and juvenile, is an 
extremely creditable one. It may be noted that Saxony has 
little more than one-fourteenth of the population of the Empire, 
yet its increase since 1871 has been greater in proportion than 
that of any other State, except the Free Cities of Hamburg, 
Bremen, and Lubeck. Between 1871 and 1905 the population 
of Saxony increased by 76°4 per cent., that of Prussia (with 
Berlin thrown in) by 51°1 per cent., that of Bavaria by 34°2 per 
cent., that of Wurtemberg by 26°6 per cent., and that of Baden 
by 37°6 per cent. 

It is particularly to be noted that Saxony’s wonderful network 
of technical agencies is not a forced and artificial growth, is not 
a species of pedagogy thrust upon an unwilling people by a 
patriarchal Government. It is emphatically the result of a spon- 
taneous desire and enthusiasm for technical education; hence it 
owes its existence overwhelmingly to the initiative and indepen- 
dent action and sacrifice of the people themselves. Before ever 
the State seriously troubled itself about technical schools, these 
institutions existed in large numbers and were doing a great 
wort. In the matter of patronage and support the Saxon 
Government has throughout gone upon a method of its own, and 


TECHNICAL EDUCATION | 99 


a method which is radically different from that followed in 
Austria, which otherwise has offered Saxony and other German 
States much helpful experience. As far as possible the estab- 
lishment of technical schools is allowed to proceed naturally 
from felt needs, and those who feel the need are encouraged to 
supply it as far as possible, for it is held that these schools, if 
they are to succeed, must be kept as closely as possible connected 
with practical life, which means that practical men must from 
first to last have the handling of them. Only where, from 
exceptional circumstances, the requisite power of initiative is 
lacking, or where universal and not merely local interests are 
at stake, does the State presume to enter in with its cate- 
gorical fiat. Yet when it orders the provision of schools it 
still relies as far as possible upon local and interested effort. 

Who, then, establish these schools? It all depends upon 
their character, for custom has gradually set up the rule that 
the type of school very largely conditions responsibility for 
its parentage and after support. Thus the Trade Schools 
(Handelsschulen) are very largely in the hands of merchants 
and the manufacturers’ associations, differently named. Of the 
61 schools of this kind, 55 were established by these bodies, 
while five are in private hands, and six are municipal institu- 
tions. So, too, the Industrial Schools (Gewerk- and Gewerbe- 
schulen of many kinds) are in the main the result of private 
associated effort. Of a total of 185 such schools, 107 have 
both been established and are conducted by Trade Guilds 
and other associations, while 23 are municipal, 17 are private, 
and the rest are State institutions. In the same way, 30 of 
the 46 Industrial Continuation Schools (a technical differ- 
entiation of the Continuation Schools proper, which are not 
here considered), owe their existence to Trade and Industrial 
Associations; one is private, and 15 are in municipal hands. 

On the other hand, most of the higher technical schools, 
whether purely industrial or art-industrial, are State institutions, 
for here larger outlays than private bodies could well be expected 
to incur are necessary ; while many of the schools which encour- 
age the rural house industries could never have been called into 
existence owing to the poverty of the populations concerned, had 
not the Government wisely taken the initiative. It follows, of 
course, that in the making of the annual grants towards the 


100 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


maintenance of technical schools other than those entirely 
dependent on the national exchequer, the Government 
scrupulously follows the same principle of requiring trade 
societies and private individuals to do all they can and should. 
For easily understood reasons the Agricultural Schools receive 
fairly liberal grants, while the Industrial Schools receive less, 
and the Trade Schools least of all. The last are mostly found 
in towns, and the merchants and manufacturers are ready to 
support the schools liberally, knowing by experience their great 
value. The Trade Guilds not less loyally support the Industrial 
Technical Schools for the same reasons. So much is expected 
from private sources, in fact, that the State is endeavouring to 
draw more into the background than hitherto, not because of 
any slackening of interest, or of any diminution in the need for 
schools, and schools of a high order, but because it is believed 
to be a wise policy to encourage the industrial and commercial 
classes to do all they can to help themselves. Probably this 
method would not succeed generally; yet it has succeeded 
wonderfully well in Saxony, which, but for its adoption, would 
not occupy its enviable position of prominence in technical 
education. 

The following analysis of Saxony’s technical schools is based 
upon the returns for 1904, the latest issued. by the Saxon 
Education Department. 

The schools may be divided into five principal groups. There: 
are (1) the Higher Schools or Colleges; (2) the Art and Art 
Industrial Schools; (8) the Industrial Schools proper, with 
their adjuncts the Industrial Continuation Schools; (4) the 
Commercial or Trade Schools ; (5) and the Agricultural Schools. 

(1) It is the object of the Technical Colleges to afford the 
highest possible technical instruction, both theoretical and 
practical, and it is for this reason that the State has undertaken 
the greater part of the cost of this branch of Saxony’s educa- 
tional system. At the head stands the Technical College o 
Dresden, founded as a polytechnic school so long ago as 1828 
and placed upon its present basis in 1871. It has five depart- 
ments, devoted respectively to (a) architecture, (b) civil engi. 
neering, (c) machine construction and electrical engineering, 
(d) chemical industries; with (e)a general department for 
mathematics, natural science, political and social science, 


TECHNICAL EDUCATION 101 


philosophy, philology, &e., and for the training of teachers in 
technical sciences, mathematics, and physics. It had in 1904 a 
teaching staff of over sixty, and its students exceeded 1,100, 
only 58 per cent. of whom, however, were Saxons, while 22 per 
cent. were non-Germans, a testimony to the excellence of the 
instruction imparted. The great majority of students come 
from the modern higher schools, few from the classical higher 
schools. The college is admirably equipped with a library and 
forty collections of models and drawings relating to the various 
departments of instruction. For the encouragement of deserving 
talent in needy circumstances and of scientific investigation, 
nearly £1,700 a year is granted in exhibitions, gratuities to 
poor students, and in contributions towards the cost of scientific 
journeys and excursions. 

To the higher technical schools belong also the Veterinary 
Academy at Dresden (founded 1780), the Mining Academy at 
Freiberg (founded 1766), with 25 teachers and over 400 students, 
of whom only 59 are Saxons and 145 Germans; and the 
Academy for Forestry at Tharandt (dating from 1811, and con- 
ducted by the State since 1816), whose chief object is the 
training of skilled men for the service of the State forests, 
though private students, among them many foreigners, attend 
in large numbers. All these schools have valuable libraries and 
collections. The Mining Academy especially enjoys inter- 
national fame, for in addition to most European countries the 
United States, Africa, Asia, and even Australia, send students. 
Finally there belongs to this group a Leipzig institution of recent 
origin, the Commercial College, founded in 1898 by the Chamber 
of Commerce of that town. Its purpose is the training of young 
men, who have already passed through the higher schools, for a 
commercial career, and in 1905 its students numbered 637, more 
than half of whom were foreigners. 

(2) The Art and Art-Industrial Schools are admirable in 
their way. There are five higher schools of this kind—three at 
Dresden (one dating from 1705 and another from 1814), one at 
Leipzig (1764), and one at Plauen (1877)—with nearly 1,400 
students in the aggregate in 1904, and costing £32,400, of 
which the State paid £30,000. Each of these schools works 
on much the same lines as the South Kensington Department. 
As an evidence of the close touch which is in this way preserved 


102 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


between art and industry it may be noted that of the 2,340 
students who passed through the Dresden Academy during a 
period of 23 years, 587 were painters and designers in connection 
with various industries, 211 were carvers in wood and stone, 
art turners, stucco workers, and stone masons, 702 lithographers, 
279 wood engravers, and 86 printers and bookbinders. The 
Plauen school is carried on for the special benefit of the textile 
industry, and in connection with it there are a textile museum, 
a technical library, and a collection of samples. From these 
travelling exhibitions are periodically formed and sent amongst 
the industrial towns of the textile district, and the result has 
been the establishment in several of the larger places of 
permanent exhibitions, which are replenished by the frequent 
exchange of new articles from headquarters. 

(8) At the head of the Industrial Schools are several of an 
advanced kind. The chief are the old-established State 
Technical Institutes at Chemnitz, viz., five different schools 
devoted respectively to (a) architecture and the mechanical, 
chemical, and electrical industries; (6) the building trades; 
(c) machine construction, including the training of overseers for 
the mechanical and electrical industries; (d) a school of industrial 
design; and (e) a school of dyeing. 

Of these schools the oldest is that of industrial design, 
dating from 1796, but two others date from 1836 and 1837 
respectively. The teachers in 1904 numbered 55 and the 
students 759, a large portion of them non-Saxons. The State 
contributed £12,850 towards the total cost of £16,800. There 
are also the Municipal Industrial School at Leipzig, with special 
departments for machine construction, printing, joinery, uphol- 
stering, and locomotive driving, and: with 1,387 students in the 
ageregate in 1904; the Mittweida Technikum (1867), comprising 
a mechanical engineering school and an overseers’ school, and 
having 1,500 students, of whom over a third are non-Germans; 
the School of Engineering at Zwickau, with 264 students in 1904; 
the Limbach Technikum, with three departments and 110 
students; the Hainichen Technikum, the Riesa Technikum, the 
Dresden Technical School, and the Dresden and Bautzen Muni- 
cipal Industrial Schools. Most of these schools have valuable 
collections of models, &c. 

Next in rank come State schools for the building trades at 


TECHNICAL EDUCATION 103 


Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz, Plauen, and Zittau, all dating from 
over sixty years ago, and carried on during the winter months 
only; three mining schools, one a State institution; a series of 
weaving and embroidery schools (26 in number), some going 
back to 1830 and very few of modern origin, and amongst them 
regularly training 2,500 students; then seven State Schools of 
Navigation intended for the boatmen of the Elbe; and finally an 
imposing array of 98 Technical Schools (Fachschulen), dis- 
tributed all over the State, devoted to special local industries, 
handicrafts, and trades, and instructing in 1904 no fewer than 
8,000 students. 

In this group of schools may also be included 18 schools of 
painting and drawing, intended for the special benefit of the toy 
industry, and attended in 1904 by 730 pupils, also the courses 
of instruction given by the factory inspectors to stokers and 
engine drivers in various centres, which change from year to 

ear. 

4 (4) The schools of the fourth group, the Trade Schools, in 
number 61, owe their origin and their success, which is great, to 
the enterprise and liberality of the Commercial Corporations 
and Associations, and of the members of the merchant class 
individually, for communal action is here very rare. These 
schools are specially intended for apprentices—for the merchants 
of the future. There is no technical instruction in the common 
sense of the words, and manual teaching is altogether absent. 
Attention is rather centred on book-keeping, caligraphy (be it 
understood in its etymological sense), mercantile correspon- 
dence, mercantile geography and history, stenography, modern 
languages, the rudiments of political economy, and such other 
subjects as are comprised in the convenient term ‘‘commercial 
science.”’ 

(5) There is, lastly, the group of agricultural and horti- 
cultural schools, 18 in number (10 of the former and three 
of the latter), and containing several of national and even of 
Continental fame. They have all been established by associa- 
tions of farmers and gardeners respectively, and their students 
numbered 858 in 1904. 

At none of the schools to which reference has been made is 
attendance compulsory, yet in reality an indirect pressure is 
exerted. It happens in this wise. Since 1893 compulsory 


104 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


attendance at a continuation school has :been legalised in 
Saxony, which was the second State in the German Empire to 
adopt this epoch-making act of coercion. For three years after 
leaving the primary school, that is, from the age of 14 to 17, 
boys and girls must carry on their education in an advanced 
night-school. With a view to economy of time, however, they 
are given the option of passing these three compulsory years in 
a Technical School instead. Many go at once to Industrial or 
Trade Schools, while others pass their compulsory years in what 
are known as Industrial Continuation Schools, a type of school 
which the Education Law of 1878 called into existence. These 
schools were 46 in number in 1904, and were attended in 1904 
by over 9,000 scholars. 

So far is this law from being regarded as a hardship, that in 
in general the students who come under it attend school most 
willingly, and often continue there long after their legal duty 
has been fulfilled. Practically all the more intelligent and 
persevering students of the continuation schools pass on, without 
any pressure, into the Industrial Schools, which have as a 
consequence greatly increased in numbers and popularity since 
1898. Compulsion has, in fact, been such a success in Saxony 
that it could probably now with perfect safety be dispensed 
with, and in practice the educational authorities do place far less 
reliance upon the rigours of the law than upon the fostering of a 
spontaneous desire to learn, and know, and excel. | 

Such is the many-sided system of technical education which 
Saxony has in the course of years, and by a vast expenditure of 
wisely directed effort, brought to a degree of excellence which 
may well excite both the envy and the admiration of rival 
industrial countries. I heard much, when discussing the subject 
in Dresden at the Ministry of Education, of the means adopted 
by the Government for obtaining from the Technical Schools 
the best results. While the last word is always said by the 
Ministry above, there is no wholesale treatment. Freedom of 
movement, within wise limits, is studiously fostered. * ‘‘We 
introduce less regimentation (reglementiren) in our schools than 
is the case in Prussia,’’ I was told by the Director of this 
Department: ‘‘as far as possible we let them alone, only taking 
care to spur them to emulation; and that, with our intelligent 
Saxon folk, is quite enough.’’ <A feature of this plan of 


TECHNICAL EDUCATION 105 


encouragement is the publication every five years of a complete 
register of the schools, recording what they have done or failed 
fo do, and awarding praise without stint for the praiseworthy, 
while turning the fierce light of comparison upon the backward. 
The effect has been found to be eminently stimulative. The 
Same practical spirit is shown in the selection of teachers. 
Stress is, of course, laid upon proved efficiency, and as far as 
possible attractive salaries are offered, with a view to securing 
the best available talent; yet a very considerable degree of 
laxity is purposely allowed in the requirement of formal certifi- 
cates of efficiency of the usual examination order, on the ground 
that in the lower technical schools it is practical ability rather 
than any encyclopedic knowledge of theory that is needed. 
Nor is the system of Government inspection grievous. The 
local managing bodies are expected to exercise needful super- 
Vision, and supreme control is exerted through a single inspector, 
though lately several sub-inspectors have been appointed. 
Another means of promoting friendly rivalry is by the holding 
of periodical exhibitions of students’ work. These exhibitions 
are not intended so much for the general public as for the 
schools themselves and their teachers. Hence all schools are 
encouraged, and are even expected, to take part, whether their 
proficiency be great or small. ‘‘There are no parade horses at 
our exhibitions,’’ said the Director expressively. The object, in 
fact, is not to create a spectacle, but to produce solid results. 

It is worth notice also that while in theory, and to some 
extent in practice, the higher technical schools are open to all 
comers, the shrewd Saxon has of late years come to look with 
a certain suspicion, if not disapproval, on foreign pupils. 
*‘Formerly,’’ I was informed, ‘‘all were welcome. ‘Let every- 
body come,’ we said: ‘the world is wide, and we have plenty of 
room.’ But we say that no longer.” The fact is that every 
pupil is regarded as a possible commercial rival, and in Saxony 
there is no disposition to ride the hobby of free competition 
to the death. Hence a certain coldness on the part of the 
authorities toward the ‘‘outlander,’’ who is no longer invited as of 
old to share at the board of knowledge on equal terms, but is 
invariably required to pay double or even treble fees. But even 
when he thus pays he would appear, judging by his numbers, to 
be well satisfied. 


CHAPTER VII 
CAPITAL AND LABOUR 


The relations between capital and labour—The legal status of labour and its 
organisations—The trade unions and their membership—The Socialist 
organisations—The Christian (Roman Catholic) and Hirsch-Duncker 
organisations—Revenue and expenditure—The ‘free labour’? unions— 
Trade unions as fighting organisations—Strikes and their result—Progress 
of labour—Future of trade unionism—The Socialist Press--Loyalty of 
trade unionists to their leaders—An exception to the rule—Trade union 
contributions—Smallness of official salaries—The workmen’s secretariates 
—The attitude of capital to labour—The industrial princes of Rhineland- 
Westphalia—Their hostility to trade unions—The Westphalian miners’ 
strike in 1905—Organisations of employers—The bitterness of the struggle 
—A better feeling in the South—Insurance against strikes and lock-outs— 
Present phases of the labour movement—The agitation for higher wages 
and shorter hours—The ten-hours day predominant—Attitude of the 
Imperial Government—Labour policy of the State and municipal 
authorities. 


SHORT time ago there took place, between the special 

organ in the German Press of the employers of labour and 
the official organ of the Social Democratic party, an exchange of 
views which clearly brought out the differences between capital 
and labour in Germany. The Arbeitgeber-Zeitung (Employers’ 
Gazette) had published an article upon the agreements for the 
adjustment of disputes which exist in the British engineering 
and shipbuilding trades. It pointed out that by these agreements 
“‘the trade unions recommend their members not to refuse to 
work with non-unionists, and the employers’ unions recommend 
their members not to refuse to employ workmen because they 
belong to unions. No workman shall be required to say whether 
he belongs to a union or not.’ ‘‘Is there,” it added, “‘a 
German trade union which would subscribe to such an agree- 


ment, though it is not in all respects what German employers 
106 


CAPITAL AND LABOUR 107 


regard as desirable?’’ To this challenge the leading Socialist 
labour journal, the Vorwdrts, replied: ‘‘ Such an agreement as 
the one referred to would be signed by every German trade 
union without hesitation, since it prohibits the employer from 
penalising workmen for belonging to organisations. At the 
moment of writing we receive news that ‘ The porcelain workers 
of have been locked out because they have not complied 
with a demand that they should withdraw from their union.’ 
And that proceeding is typical of German conditions. Lock- 
outs for the same cause are of daily occurrence with us.”’ 

Now, neither German employers nor German trade unions are 
as black as they are generally painted by each other. Never- 
theless, the fact remains that the relationship between capital 
and labour is one of extreme tension, and in some industries of 
extreme bitterness. Organisation on the one side has been 
answered by combination on the other, until it is literally true, 
as the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung asserted recently, that 
‘* The employers have been welded into a weapon-brotherhood, re- 
gardless of their competitive relationships,’’ so that, in some of the 
large industries at least, they ‘‘ present to-day a closed phalanx.”’ 

For a long time to come no factor will be so important in 
determining the conditions of labour as trade unionism, and its 
power and pretensions deserve study. 

It seems desirable to refer briefly, by way of introduction, to 
the legal status of labour and its organisations. In regard to 
the right to combine for the defence of economic interests a 
valuable safeguard is secured to the majority of wage-earners— 
not, however, to State employees, agricultural labourers, and 
domestic servants, who possess no right of the kind—by Section 
152 of the Industrial Code, which declares that ‘‘ All prohibitions 
and penal regulations against industrial employers, industrial 
assistants, journeymen, or factory operatives regarding agree- 
ments and combinations for the purpose of obtaining more 
favourable conditions of wages and of work, particularly by 
means of the suspension of work or the dismissal of workpeople, 
are repealed.”’ The provision constitutes a defence of strikes 
and lock-outs, though this unrestricted right to combine for 
economic ends does not apply to political or even public affairs. 

But in judging the liberty which the working classes enjoy of 
furthering their interests by the method of the strike it is not 





108 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


sufficient to state the bare letter of the law. So much depends 
on the application of the law by courts and judges, and such a 
variety of interpretation and usage prevails, that it is only by the 
examination of judicial decisions that the actual state of the law 
can be learned. The method of exclusive dealing is largely 
resorted to by the working classes in the assertion of their 
economic claims. There exists, indeed, no legal right to pro- 
claim an embargo upon an industrial undertaking in which 
employer and workpeople are in conflict, yet it has been 
found that the same end can be attained by the employment of 
ingenuity in phrasing, and in practice the law has tacitly 
tolerated the unacknowledged yet no less effective ‘‘ boycotting ”’ 
(the word was long ago naturalised in the German vocabulary of 
labour) of employers and public places of assembly (like meeting- 
halls and licensed premises) obnoxious to the workers, though 
here, too, there are exceptions according to the practice of the 
various States and tribunals. For example, the mere threat of 
a strike or a “‘ boycott,” in the event of an employer not falling 
in with conditions proposed by his workpeople, has been punished 
as a misdemeanour under the provision of the Penal Code. which 
forbids the use of force or menace with the object of “* procuring 
illegal pecuniary advantage.’’ In isolated cases courts of law 
have even interpreted the summary demand of higher wages in 
this sense, and workpeople have frequently been convicted for 
having appealed to their colleagues in open meeting to cease 
work without giving notice. On the whole it may be said that 
the law of combination is more liberal than its interpretation 
by the courts and the police, so that in practice the German 
working classes cannot be said to conduct their class struggles 
on equal terms. | 

Their organisations fall into three principal groups—the 
‘Free’? or Social Democratic group, the Hirsch-Duncker or 
Radical group, and the Christian or (for the most part) Roman 
Catholic group. There are, however, small independent groups, 
notably the ‘‘ Yellow’ organisations, which have been promoted 
and subsidised by the employers, on ‘‘ Free Labour” lines, as 
understood in England, aad the lately established ‘‘ Patriotic”’ or 
‘*National’’ organisations. All these types of unionism will be 
dealt with in order. The unions in which the Poles combine do 
not call for detailed reference. They are purely national and 


CAPITAL AND LABOUR 109 


_ are found for the most part in the colliery and iron districts of 
_ Bhenish-Westphalia. Although Roman Catholics, the Poles 
have greater social affinity with the Social Democratic than the 
Christian organisations; it has proved impossible, however, to 
induce them to join either in large numbers. On labour ques- 
tions, as on all others, they set themselves apart and go their 
own way. The whole of their unions are understood to have a 
membership of a hundred thousand, but the tie is a loose one 
and is dictated more by racial than economic motive. 

The German trade unionists proper were classified as follows 
in 1905 and 1906 :— 






Increase. 


Absolute. | Per. Cent. 






Socialist (‘‘ Free”) Central Unions | 1,344,803 | 1,689,709 344,906 25:6 
Socialist Local Unions .. a 27,736 13,145 | (— 14,591 — 52:6 
Hirsch-Duncker Unions ... 117,097} 118,508 1:2 






Christian Unions ... 
Independent Unions 


265,032 320,248 
65,262 73,544 










Totals + | 1,819,930 | 2,215,154] + 395,224 + 21°7 





*¢ The three principal groups of German Trade Union organi- 
sations,’’ said a German writer recently, ‘‘ represent together 
the most powerful, most numerous, the best organised, the 
most militant, if not the most wealthy, labour army of which 
we have any knowledge, though in political views these great 
organisations are diametrically opposed.’’ Nevertheless, the 
German trade unions, though collectively stronger in numbers 
than the English unions, do not yet contain so large a pro- 
portion of the industrial workers as the latter, or indeed the 
unions of several other  weabcie countries, such as Denmark 
and Sweden. 7 , 

The Socialist or ‘‘ Free’’ organisations naturally give the 
lead to the entire trade unionist movement. So strong have 
they become during recent years that they now embrace nearly 
80 per cent. of the organised workers of the country. In 1890 
their aggregate membership was only 277,659, but during 
the past five years their growth has been strikingly rapid, as the 
following figures show :— 


110 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Annual Increase. 


Year. No. of Members, 


Absolute. Percentage. 
1902 733,206 55,696 8°2 
1903 887,698 154,492 21:0 
1904 1,052,108 164,410 18°5 
1905 1,344,803 292,695 27°8 
1906 1,689,709 344,906 25°6 


At the beginning of the year 1907 the “‘ Free”’ unions had a 
membership of 1,798,000. The increase during five years had 
thus been 1,064,800, equal to over 145 per cent. The member- 
ship of the principal trades was as follows in that year: 
building trades, 382,567; mineral and metal industries, 
878,555 ; textile industry, 111,532; commerce and transport, 
122,511; miners, 110,247; clothing industry, 91,273; wood 
industry, 170,282; food and drink industries, 88,055; stone and 
earth industries, 57,840; polygraphic (printing and _ allied) 
trades, 77,889; and paper and leather industries, 47,125. 
During 1906 thirteen unions had each an increase of over 5,000 
members, seven had an increase of over 20,000, four one of over 
80,000, and one an increase of 75,000. It is likely that if the 
present rate of increase continues the ‘‘ Free’’ unions will in 
several years have a membership of two and a half millions. 
The unions are grouped in Federations, of which there were 
64 in 1906, and in the large towns these Federations have 
central offices, combining union offices, inquiry agencies, 
labour registries, reading-rooms and libraries, lodging-house, 
restaurant, &c. One of the latest of these central institutions, 
at Leipzig, cost £50,000. 

The ‘‘Free’’ trade unions have also of late years made 
considerable progress amongst women, of whom 118,908 were 
organised in 87 unions in 1906. The textile-workers’ union 
alone had 87,020 female members, the metal-workers’ union 
had 138,305, the tobacco-workers’ union 12,883, and the general 
factory-workers’ union 10,736, next to which the unions with 
the largest female membership were those of the bookbinders, 
shoemakers, linen-makers, printers’ assistants, tailors, wood- 
workers, and shop assistants. € 

The ‘‘ Free” central unions had a revenue in 1906 of 


CAPITAL AND LABOUR 111 


£2,080,000, and an expenditure of £1,848,000, and their 
accumulated funds were £1,266,000. In 1891 the revenue per 
member for all purposes was only 6s. 8d., in 1895 it was 11s. 6d., 
but in 1906 it was £1 4s. 7d., while the accumulated funds have 
increased from 2s. 6d. to 14s. 7d. per head. 

These unions have throughout kept in close touch with 
the political movements of Socialism, and this association has 
been of immense help in recruiting their members. The great 
majority of the members are undoubtedly convinced Socialists, 
so far as conviction can be said to go, in an attachment which 
is based far more on feeling than reason, yet a considerable 
section identify themselves neither with the Socialist party 
nor with Socialist principles. It is significant that while the 
members of the Socialist trade unions numbered nearly a 
million and three quarters in 1906, the Socialist political party 
only numbered a little over half a million registered and sub- 
scribing members, including adherents other than manual 
workers, of whom there are many. The Socialist unions of 
Berlin alone had a quarter of a million members, but the 
*‘ politically organised’ Socialists of that town only numbered 
78,000. <A short time ago the Socialist Trades Federation of 
Danzig inquired of its 4,000 members how many were “ poli- 
tically organised,’ and of those who replied only 8 per cent. 
so described themselves. 

The explanation of this apparent inconsistency is that a large 
number of workmen are drawn to the Socialist trade unions 
because they are the most energetic, most vigilant, most 
resourceful, and at the same time most uncompromising, iu 
promoting the interests of labour, and because their large fnuds 
and unequalled machinery enable them to offer to the working 
classes advantages which are not offered in anything like the 
same degree by the other organisations. Thus the Socialist 
Working-men’s Secretariates or Advice Agencies which are 
found in most large German towns are altogether superior in 
usefulness to the rival agencies of the same kind which, in far 
smaller numbers, are carried on by the Hirsch-Duncker and 
Roman Catholic organisations. 

German trade unions classify themselves as ‘‘ Gewerk- 
schaften’’ (the Socialist and Christian unions) and ‘‘ Gewerk- 
yvereine’’ (the Hirsch-Duncker unions). The first trade unions 


112 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


to be formed were of the latter kind and date from 1868. 
They owed their existence to Dr. Max Hirsch, an influential 
member of the Radical Parliamentary party, who had found 
his model in England. They were originally politico-economic 
organisations and were formed of working men who were more 
or less in sympathy with Radicalism. Even to-day they 
resemble the English trade unions most closely, though 
puzzled by the new movement which in England would appear 
to be rapidly diminishing the distance between trade unionism 
and Socialism. They are still closely associated, both in political 
views and in practical action, with the Radicals of one 
direction or another, yet on principle they repudiate formal 
association with any political party and leave their members 
free, in Frederick the Great’s words, to be ‘‘ saved every one in 
his own way.” ‘‘ We are a neutral organisation for economic 
ends, and that we will remain.”’ This standpoint was formally 
avowed by the last congress of the Hirsch-Duncker unions, and 
in general the principle of detachment is observed as far as 
possible to a party which is not one of great numerical or 
intrinsic strength. These unions on the whole represent the 
élite of the working classes, yet they are not pioneer organisa- 
tions and they make little progress, their total number being 
only equal to one year’s addition to the Social Democratic unions. 
Their largest national union is that of the machine builders and 
metal workers, which in 1905 had 47,112 members, the factory 
and unskilled labourers’ union following with 16,642. They are 
not exactly a peace-at-any-price party of labour, but they have 
no love of powder and firearms, and will negotiate long and 
patiently rather than. expose their resources to the decima- 
ting influence of active disputes. Their revenue in 1906 was 
£70,200, their expenditure £67,200, and their accumulated 
funds £181,000. Two-thirds of their invested funds are 
ear-marked for sick benefit. . 

The Christian unions, which are strongest in the industrial 
and mining districts of Rhenish-Westphalia, where the Roman 
Catholic Church is paramount, have in the past been still less 
militant. They may best be described as a compromise between 
ecclesiastical and economic organisations. More than forty 
years ago, when an outburst of social fervour passed through 
Roman Catholic circles in the Rhineland, under the influence of 


CAPITAL AND LABOUR 113 


Lassalle’s convert, Bishop Ketteler, many associations of working 
men attached to that Church were formed. But they were not 
ageressive or exclusively devoted to labour propagandism. Their 
founders and patrons were as a rule priests of popular sympathies, 
who were concerned lest the Roman Catholic working classes 
should be drawn into alien organisations. Gradually it was 
found necessary to broaden the basis of these societies, and 
more and more to conduct them on the usual trade union lines ; 
yet the tie between the Church and labour has not been 
weakened, and on the whole the Christian organisations are, 
even to-day, the most tractable of all the labour unions. On 
occasion they join hands with the Socialist and other unions 
when there is 2 common battle to be fought, but they have no 
sympathy whatever with the Socialist creed. Thus in the 
Westphalian coal strike of 1905 the Christian unions, after first 
hesitating, threw in their lot entirely with the Socialist organisa- 
tions, and with them fought the battle through. Peace having 
been secured, the old inter-party bickerings were promptly re- 
sumed, and they are now carried on more diligently than ever. 

At their annual congress in Breslau in 1906 the Christian 
unions reaffirmed their basis of operations very clearly when they 
declared that they entirely accepted the existing political and 
economic order as ‘‘ necessary and expedient,”’ yet they demanded 
for the working classes (Lohnarbevterstand) ‘‘ a larger influence 
in the determination of the social order and the conditions of 
labour.” They repudiated the Socialist notion of an inevitable 
‘class war,’ and affirmed their intention to oppose any un- 
necessary alienation of the different classes of society. Such 
a standpoint excites the ridicule of the Socialist, who is pro- 
foundly convinced that every man’s hand is against him, but it 
is still in general cordially accepted by the Roman Catholic 
workers, who are not likely to abandon it save under severe 
provocation. The Christian unions have at their disposal most 
of the machinery which the Socialists employ—advice bureaux, 
funds for all purposes, labour registries, and the like—though 
the vigour of their various propagandist agencies is greatly 
restrained owing to the fact that the moderating influence of 
the clergy is everywhere exerted. 

At the end of the year 1906 the Christian unions had a mem- 
bership of 835,247, of whom 260,040 belonged to the organisa- 

9 


114. THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


tions affiliated to the Central Federation. The largest of these 
unions were those of the miners, with 77,000 members ; masons 
and masons’ labourers, with 40,000; textile operatives, with 
40,000 ; metal workers, with 30,000; the Bavarian railwaymen, 
with 25,000; transport labourers, with 15,000; and wood 
workers and ceramic workers, with 10,000 each. Their revenue 
in that year was £182,000, and their expenditure £149,000. 

The ‘‘ Free Labour” unions, which, following French usage, 
are called ‘‘ Yellow ’’—the Socialist unions are ‘‘ Red’’ and the 
Christian unions ‘‘ Black ’’’—are local, and as a rule are gsub- 
sidised, even when they have not been established, by the large 
industrial firms, acting independently or collectively. Most of 
these firms belong to the engineering trade and are willing to 
pay liberally to the support of organisations which are 
pledged to keep the peace. For the principal condition of mem- 
bership is that strikes must on no account be resorted to, and 
that the right of coalition shall pro tanto be surrendered. Asa 
rule these unions are limited to special works. One of the 
largest, formed in connection with a Bavarian machine works, 
comprises 74 per cent. of the employees, and the firm contributes 
£2,000 per annum to its funds. Essentially such contributions 
are a form of insurance against disputes, but the ‘‘ Yellow”’ 
union movement is too recent to enable one to judge whether 
it will stand the test of serious differences between employers 
and employed. If the monetary assistance of the former were 
withdrawn the unions would not exist a day. It is natural 
that the ‘‘ Yellow”’ associations should not stand in good repute 
with other trade unionists of any class, and their influence upon 
the labour movement is so far quite insignificant. 

Another and somewhat similar type of trade union, so called, 
was called into existence in 1905, with the name “‘ Patriotic ”’ 
Working Men’s Union. There is nothing distinctive about the 
branches of this organisation, except their feebleness, insig- 
nificance, and their assumption of special national virtues, which 
by implication are denied to the Hirsch-Duncker and Christian 
unions. Seeing that the ‘‘ Patriotic’? union did not think it 
necessary to come to the relief of the working classes until the 
old-established unions had a membership of nearly two millions, 
there is little disposition to treat it seriously, and neither a long 
nor a useful life is predicted for it. 


CAPITAL AND LABCUR 115 


More and more the trade unions are becoming fighting organi- 
sations, and even the Christian unionists are ceasing to look 
upon the labour movement with the old apathy. In 1891 the 
Social Democratic organisations expended on account of strikes 
and lock-outs the sum of £51,880, but in 1906 this expendi- 
ture had increased to £687,421. The expenditure per head 
in the latter year was 8s. 7d. in the Socialist unions, 3s. 9d. 
in the Hirsch-Duncker unions, and 8s. 5d. in the Christian 
unions. During the fifteen years 1890 to 1905 the Social 
Democratic unions alone were involved in 11,370 strikes and 
lock-outs, in which 1,401,283 persons were interested, and on 
these strikes and lock-outs £1,852,640 was expended, divided 
as follows: Building trades, £575,700; metal industry, 
£402,500; wood industry, £282,560; clothing trade, £105,370; 
trade and transport, £107,340; graphic and paper industry, 
£105,740; food and luxuries, £70,250; ceramic industry, 
£67,690; leather industry, £28,770; mining, £60,480; textile 
industry, £130,330; and factory workers, £53,550. Yet other 
branches of work were not neglected, for during the same period 
the expenditure in out-of-work pay increased from £38,210 to 
£132,660, and the sick pay increased between 1895 and 1906 
from £22,700 to £164,080. 

According to trade union returns, 2,007 finished strikes 
oscurred annually in Germany on the average of the years 
1902-1906. These strikes affected 10,297 undertakings, and 
the number of strikers was 186,671, or 45°2 per cent. of the 
workpeople in the undertakings concerned, while 12,663 others 
were thrown out of work. In 1906 there were 3,328 finished 
strikes, affecting 16,246 undertakings and 272,218 workpeople 
(89°7 per cent. of the whole), while 24,433 workpeople were 
thrown out of work. ‘The largest group of strikes was that 
in the building trade, embracing 1,079 undertakings and 
79,076 strikers; then followed the textile industry, with 154 
undertakings and 29,215 strikers; the metal-working industry, 
with 310 undertakings and 22,724 strikers; the mining, 
smelting, and salt works, with 106 undertakings and 21,391 
strikers; the wood industry, with 486 undertakings and 21,141 
strikers; and the engineering trade, with 206 undertakings and 
19,046 strikers. Of the 3,328 strikes, 2,510, or 75:4 per cent., 
related, amongst other things, to wages disputes, and 1,019, or 


116 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY | 


80°6 per cent., in part to hours of labour. As to result, 18°4 
per cent. ended with complete success for the workpeople (against 
21°1 per cent. on the average of 1902-6), 45 per cent. with 
partial success (against 38°2 per cent. during the whole period 
1902-6), and 86°6 per cent. with failure (against 40°7 per cent.). 
Of the completely successful strikes more than 90 per cent. were 
ageressive. It is estimated that the whole of the trade unions 
expended on strikes during the years 1896 to 1905 more than 
one and a half million pounds. 

No small part of the progress made by the working classes 
during the past twenty years, alike in wages and the general 
conditions of labour, is due to the action of the trade unions. 
The entire status of labour has been raised, and by general 
consent industry has been well able to bear the largely increased 
expenditure entailed by the higher wages and the reduced hours, 
yet most of the ground won by labour has been severely con- 
tested, and without the aid of strong organisation, led by deter- 
mined men, it would not have been won at all. In Germany, as 
elsewhere, the weakest organisation is found in the badly paid 
industries, and it is in these industries that the least disturbance 
occurs in the relationships of capital and labour. The chemical 
industry is an illustration of this general truth ; in this industry 
wages are low and strikes rare, and the gradual improvement in 
the workers’ level of earnings is dependent upon the extent to 
which the chemical industry is affected by the competition for 
labour. Only the general upward movement of wages levels up 
the standard in an industry like this, and it is the last to feel the 
benefit. | ‘ 

In Germany there is a disposition to regard the recent growth 
of trade unionism as abnormal, and the prediction is sometimes 
made that directly the relationships between capital and labour 
become composed the unions will lose their hold upon the working 
classes and decline. The answer to this is that there is no like- 
lihood, either immediate or remote, of the relationships between 
employers and employed becoming more harmonious. The trade 
unions are only just learning their power, and far from the 
struggle between capital and labour being exhausted, it is merely 
beginning. Experience, it is true, shows that an important 
dispute invariably leads to a large addition of members to the 
organisations which do the fighting on the men’s behalf, and that 


CAPITAL AND LABOUR 117 


with peace a considerable proportion of these recruits fall away. 
There have been many such disputes during recent years, and 
the membership rolls of some of the unions affected show as a 
consequence startling fluctuations. For example, while in the 
year 1903 101,281 new members joined the Socialist Metal 
Workers’ Association, 69,988 withdrew from it. So, too, the 
Christian Miners’ Union had 48,400 members when the West- 
phalian strike of 1905 began; before the strike ended its 
membership had grown to 80,000, but the dispute had not long 
been settled before the number fell to 47,000. The significant 
thing is, however, that the growth of trade unionism has been 
steady and persistent in spite of violent fluctuations in individual 
unions, and this will in all probability be the case in future. 
Every circumstance of the workers’ condition encourages that 
view. The growth of the syndicates, the organisation of em- 
ployers in defensive unions, the amalgamation of these unions in 
powerful federations covering large areas and commanding virtu- 
ally unlimited funds, the tendency of taxation to restrict the 
workers’ spending capacity, the desire for a higher and fuller 
life—all these things force the worker to aim at the enlargement 
of his resources, and whatever may be the ultimate incidence 
of his increasing wages demands, his immediate concern is 
with his employer. 

In its work of organisation and agitation, trade unionism, 
especially of the Socialist type, is assisted by a singularly 
efficient Press. In sixty-eight towns the Socialist party has 
daily newspapers, and in three of these towns two or more 
such newspapers; four newspapers appear once a week, and 
eighteen appear at longer intervals. In addition sixty-two 
trades and industries have special trade union newspapers (several 
with two or three), most of them appearing weekly, and there 
are at least twelve other journals and magazines of various 
kinds conducted by the party or the trade unions. Im the 
interest of Polish and Italian workmen there are newspapers 
written in their languages. Many of the daily newspapers 
of the party have large circulations, equalling or exceeding 
those of the burgher newspapers published in the same 
town. The most widely circulated of the trade unionist 
journals is that of the metal trades, which claims to be distri- 
buted to the number of 200,000 each week. ‘The daily Press 


118 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 
8. 


is for the most part ably and energetically conducted. It does 
not pay much attention to the niceties of controversy and 
has no respect for confidential documents ; its tone is frankly 
anti-ecclesiastical and often aggressively atheistic, in spite 
of the much vaunted but very hollow claim of the Socialist 
party that it regards religion as, in the words of its programme, 
‘‘a private matter,” yet it serves the purpose of agitation 
effectively. Primarily the daily journals are party papers, and 
Socialist propagandism is their principal aim. They zealously 
watch the interests of labour, however, and in the event of 
an industrial dispute they are able to afford powerful help to 
the men. 

The editors of these journals are often men of considerable 
education and study, who have obtained their doctorates at the 
university by hard work, and their intimate acquaintance with 
economic questions gives to their articles—one-sided though they 
may often be—a note of intelligence and even of authority which 
would be welcome in more reputable departments of journalism. 
They are, moreover, careful and generally accurate—probably 
never wilfully inaccurate—in their facts, though often enough 
perverse and wrong-headed in their theories and as full of 
prejudices as of good intentions. 

Germany is on the whole behind England in the publication 
ef cheap literature of a high class, but its labour Press is far 
above the English level in wideness of interests and in literary 
ability. In many of the trade organs which have been referred 
to, dyed red with Socialism though they may be, appear articles 
which the most educated persons could read with interest and 
profit—articles on art, literature, the sciences, antiquities, 
theology (very rationalistic yet strictly critical), travel, &c. If 
newspapers give the public what the public demands, the readers 
of these cheap prints must belong to a higher order of intelligence 
than the average English labour journalist. Or is the tone 
given in both cases by the journalist himself? Whatever be the 
explanation, the labour newspapers of the two countries offer 
interesting points of comparison. 

Nor is the Socialist Press conducted on philanthropic lines. 
Every journal is expected to pay its writers moderate salaries— 
they are generally very moderate indeed—and leave a surplus 
available for party purposes, and many of the organs in the 


CAPITAL AND LABOUR 119 


large towns do, as a fact, yield large profits. To this end the 
rank and file of the party are urged as a matter of principle 
to support their own newspapers and no other, and on the whole 
the response to this appeal to loyalty is cordial. An inquiry 
made recently of the members of a strong trade union in Berlin 
brought to light the fact that 36°6 per cent. of the households 
interrogated regularly subscribed to the official Socialist 
journal. 

The Hirsch-Duncker and still more the Christian unions 
have also their trade papers, though they do not compare in 
importance with those of the Socialist unions, and the con- 
stant and bitter controversial warfare between the three rival 
journalistic camps points to the existence of deep-seated 
divergences and antitheses. 

In general the trade unionists are perfectly loyal to their 
organisations and leaders. When the movement was in its 
infancy it was often a matter of difficulty to persuade the men 
that, having become organised, they were bound to stand together 
and accept the verdict of the majority, and if needful the 
decisions of their leaders, when duly empowered to act on their 
behalf, even though such acceptance at times involved 
disappointment and chagrin. With more knowledge of trade 
union principles, and with experience of the disaster which 
attended divisions, this chafing against authority disappeared. 
Here the educative influence of political life was of great effect, 
though it is questionable whether the identification of the 
trade union movement with politics has on the whole been 
of economic advantage to the German workman. Nevertheless, 
cases still occur from time to time in which the men get out 
of hand, and under the influence of the strike fever throw 
discretion and authority to the winds. To take a recent 
example, a dispute arose in the Berlin building trade in 
1907. The masons were in receipt by agreement of wages 
of 9d. per hour with a day of nine hours in summer. 
They demanded 104d. per hour and an eight-hour day at 
once. The hours of labour were to be reduced by 11 per cent. 
and the lost time was to be made up by a 18 per cent. 
increase of wages. The effect would have been to have 
increased the weekly wages from 40s. 6d. to 41s. The 
dispute occurred in the middle of the busy season and the 


120 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


employers were at great disadvantage. They offered to concede 
a higher rate of wages but declined to reduce the hours of work. 
The leaders of the men’s organisation accepted this offer as 
a fair compromise, but with reproaches and resentment the 
leaders were overthrown, and the men decided to strike. 
Kven the party organ condemned the hot-headed attitude of 
the rank and file, who went so far as to refuse the conciliatory 
overtures of the Court of Conciliation. The struggle ended 
without definite result either way. Many of the employers 
settled on the basis of 94d. an hour and 84 hours’ work, but 
the majority let matters take their course and only resumed 
building when the men were tired of playing, which was too 
late to enable either side to recoup that year the losses which 
had been occasioned by a dispute forced on the employers in 
defiance of all the rules and best traditions of trade unionism. 
Two incidental results of the strike may be named. On 
the one hand the wages agreement movement became discredited, 
for the employers argued that if the men would repudiate a 
bargain made on their behalf by their own leaders, they would 
be equally ready to repudiate a contract made with them when 
it suited their purpose. Further, the employers learned during 
the dispute the value of piecework and began to employ this 
method of remuneration—hateful to all German trade unionists 
—far more extensively than before. 

It has been estimated that a trade unionist’s contributions 
of all kinds to his union range between 1s. and 2s. per week, 
according to a workman’s trade and rank. The weekly con- 
tribution proper varies from 24d. to 1s. 5d., with an average of 
between 5d. and 6d., but to it come various other payments— 
local additions or supplements, special levies, as for the Secre- 
tariates, &c.—so that a total contribution of 5 per cent. of a 
man’s income is probably below rather than beyond the mark. 
The proportion has been estimated to be as much as 74 per 
cent. in many cases. Certainly little of this money paid into 
the trade union funds goes to the able and devoted officials who 
work the machinery of organisation. The salaries of these men 
are seldom higher than the wages of skilled mechanics, and the 
work expected of them is exacting and endless. They are at 
their post morning, afternoon, and night, always for six days in 
the week and often on Sunday as well, and apart from their 


CAPITAL AND LABOUR 121 


onerous tasks the amount of fighting they have to do, and the 
constant legal risks they have to run, are so harassing that only 
sheer love of their cause could keep them at their posts. Cer- 
tainly the German trade unionist official does not ‘‘ batten on 
the hard-earned wages of the working man.” 

Almost invariably the headquarters of the federations of all 
three groups of trade unions are also the home of another 
institution which greatly aids the unions in their work of 
organisation and agitation. This is the inquiry and advice 
agency, usually called Workmen’s Secretariate, which is a 
friend-in-need to working people of both sexes, and often to 
the public generally, in many a difficult situation. So popular 
have these institutions become, and so important is the place 
they fill, that a number of towns have established public agencies 
on the same lines, at which legal advice is gratuitously given 
upon all matters of civil, penal, and industrial law. In 1907 
there were 96 ‘‘Free”’ or Socialist Workmen’s Secretariates 
with 132 other agencies, and they gave advice and information 
in 464,465 cases, of which 187,644 related to insurance, 130,986 
to civil law matters, 70,974 to labour and wages questions, 
60,065 to State and municipal matters, and 34,017 to the 
penal law. The number of different persons who consulted the 
Secretariates alone was 401,950. Of the 96 Secretariates 27 
only gave help to organised workpeople or those incapable of 
organisation (i.e., domestic servants, &c.), while the majority 
followed the policy of the open door. 

It must not be supposed, however, that capital has passively 
looked on while labour has closed its ranks and united in an 
_ aggressive movement upon the citadel of industrial wealth. On 
the contrary, the resistance of German employers to trade 
unionism was never so strong as at the present time, though 
this resistance is more determined in some parts of the country, 
and also in some industries, than in others. In no industries 
is if so vigorous, however, as in the syndicated coal, iron, and 
steel industries of the West of Prussia. If trade unionism is 
nowhere so strong as there, anti-unionism is nowhere so 
uncompromising. 

*‘The decisive battles of German politics,” said truly a 
German journal recently, ‘‘ will be fought neither on the 
Neckar (Baden) nor on the Isar (Bavaria), but in the district 


122 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


of the Elbe (Prussia). For in North Germany capitalism has 
attained the gigantic expansion which is characteristic of the 
world-market ; there classes oppose each other so nearly and so 
roughly that one disputant can look into the white of his enemy’s 
eye; there amiability long ago disappeared from politics.” Of 
the relationships between capital and labour this is emphatically 
true, and the truth has an explanation. The remark is often 
made by German employers, ‘‘ Our workpeople are unpractical : 
they have no comprehension of industrial conditions.” Trans- 
lated into plainer language the complaint implies that the 
modern workman shows a keener sense of his rights than his 
fathers did, and is not very discriminating in his choice of means 
of advancing his position. This must be freely conceded. The 
workman is fighting, and fighting at best is a crude and bruta! 
business. If he makes use of any weapons that lie to hand, and 
is not particular as to how he handles them, he only proves that 
the struggle between labour and capital in Germany is a little 
less refined than in some other countries. Yet capital has not 
been slow to retaliate. Rhineland-Westphalia is its chosen 
battle-ground. Here all the conditions of economic warfare 
exist in a rare degree. 

It is a striking fact that a large part of the natural resources, 
industry, and wealth-production of that unresting workshop of 
Germany is under the control of a dozen men of command- 
ing business genius—men of strong and masterful character, 
born rulers of the sternest mould, without sentiment, not in- 
susceptible to justice yet never going beyond it, inflexible 
in decision, of inexhaustible will-power, and impervious to 
all modern notions of political liberalism. These men, who 
have so conspicuously helped to create modern industrial 
Prussia, and who are a greater real power in the land than 
Ministers and legislators put together, typify in modern industry 
the feudalism which is slowly dying upon the great estates of 
the East. Their attitude towards the unions in which their 
workmen are organised to the number of hundreds of thousands 
is frequently expressed in the maxim, ‘‘ We intend to be masters 
in our own house,’ and nothing is wanting in the vigour with 
which this maxim is applied. On the occasion of the Mannheim 
conference of the Association for Social Policy in September, 
1905, Herr Kirdorf, probably the best-known industrialist of 


CAPITAL AND LABOUR 123 


Westphalia, and the head of the Coal and Steel Syndicates, was 
invited to give an employer’s reply to an indictment of the 
syndicates made by Professor Gustav Schmoller. In the course 
of his statement occurred the following observations on the 
question of labour organisation :— 

‘It is regrettable that our workpeople are able to change 
their positions at any time. An undertaking can only prosper 
if it has a stationary band of workers. I do not ask that legis- 
lation should come to our help, but we must reserve to ourselves 
the right to take measures to check this frequent change of 
employment. The proposal has been made that all workpeople 
should be compelled to join organisations and that employers 
should be required to negotiate with these organisations. For 
myself I would remark that I refuse to negotiate with any 
organisation whatever. I decline to negotiate either with the 
Social Democratic organisations or even with the so-called 
Christian organisations, for I regard the Christian trade 
unions as far more dangerous than the Social Democratic. 
While the Social Democratic organisations at least say openly 
at what they are aiming, viz., the subversion of the present 
social order, the Christian unions fight under a false flag—they 
fight under the cloak of Christianity. They know well that the 
subversion desired by the Social Democrats cannot be brought 
about, so they seek to place capitalism under the domination of 
the clergy. I regret, too, that the State interferes at all in 
labour relationships.” 

This passage deserves to be quoted at length, since it frankly 
and correctly characterises the attitude of the great industrialists. 
Moreover, Herr Kirdorf repeated the same sentiments only a 
few months ago in the presence of the Prussian Minister of 
Commerce, who took occasion to object to the ‘‘ phrasing”’ of 
the speech which had been made for his benefit, but wisely did 
not enter into argument. It is questionable, indeed, whether 
argument in such a matter is of any value, for views like these 
betray a frame of mind, a temperament fundamental and rooted 
in nature, and not open to the influence of reasoning: a man 
not merely thinks so, he is so. Just as the great landowner of 
the East contends that the agricultural labourer is his property 
and would refuse to him the right either to combine or to leave 
his native soil, so the great industrialist of the West ignores 


124 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


labour organisations and insists that the workman shall be 
prevented from selling his labour where and how he likes. 
Whatever may be thought of this attitude, it is held by some 
of the most powerful leaders of industry in North Germany, 
though it is not always avowed with the same candour, and only 
in the light of an utterance like the foregoing can the present 
position of trade unionism be understood.* 

These men are absolutely honest in their belief that labour 
organisations are pernicious and should be combated, not by 
legal prohibitions, for that is not necessary, not by State help, 
for they are stronger than the State, but by the most effective 
of all ways—by simply ignoring them. They do not squabble 
about insignificant demands for higher wages, so long as the 
demands are not put in the form of threats, but are willing to 
pay for labour a fair market price. Their great works are | 
models of judicious management and often abound with institu- 
tions and contrivances for the welfare of their employees going 
far beyond the requirements of the law. What they will not do, 
however, is to negotiate with, or recognise, or tolerate the 
trade union. 

Public opinion naturally finds itself often in conflict with the 
Westphalian industrialists’ attitude, which more than anything 
else was responsible for the solid gain won by the men in the 
great colliery strike of 1905. It was the same Herr Kirdorf 
who declared during that strike: ‘‘ The movement can only end 
by the men recognising that they can get nothing by a strike, 
and returning to the mines. We will negotiate with every man 


* It was a similar attack upon trade unionism, made in the Reichstag, which 
drew from the late Imperial Home Minister, Count Posadowsky, the following 
rebuke (February 6, 1906) :— 

‘*Tt has been asserted that the Christian trade unions are worse than the 
Social Democratic. It appears, then, that there are people who cherish the 
hope that in spite of our great industrial development, the labour movement— 
I mean the endeavour of the workers to improve their position and to participate 
to a greater extent than formerly in public affairs—can, or should be, entirely 
abolished. But who ever believes that falls into a great error, and supports his 
view on a somewhat narrow, interested standpoint. ‘The view that the Christian 
labour movement is worse than the Social Democratic can only come from men 
who are unsympathetic to all labour demands, however justifiable. The atti- 
tude of many men towards the demands of labour reminds me of the attitude of 
many Ministers towards Parliaments. When a Minister daily sees how his 
carefully prepared Bills are criticised, he longs for the happy times of absolutistic 
Ministers—Ministers like Richelieu, Mazarin, Kaunitz, and Metternich. But 
those times are passed and will never return; of those divinities only the 
shadow remains.” 


CAPITAL AND LABOUR 125 


singly, but we will not concede workmen’s committees.” It 
was this inflexible attitude, persisted in too long, which turned 
first the public and then the Government against the colliery 
owners. By refusing to meet the colliers’ ‘‘ Committee of Seven’’ 
they created the impression that the men were wishful for peace 
but were unable to gain an ear for their overtures. In the end 
not only were workmen’s committees granted by force of law, 
‘but the hours of labour were curtailed, fines were abolished, and 
other concessions were made which cost the colliery owners 
dearly, until the extra burden could be transferred to the public. 
It is estimated that fifteen of the largest colliery companies 
lost together during the year of the strike no less than half a 
million pounds. 

While thus the large employers look with disfavour upon 
labour organisations, they have closed their own ranks, and are 
found more than ever uniting in trade associations, and again in 
unions of these associations covering entire industries within 
wide areas. ‘The strongest of these unions is the Central Union 
of German Industrialists, which represents in the main the 
great colliery proprietors and ironmasters of Rhineland-West- 
phalia, and whose influence is held to have both made and 
unmade more than one Minister of State, though every im- 
portant industrial district has a central organisation whose 
work it is to concentrate the forces of capital in order the 
better to resist the pressure of trade unionism. ‘‘ The military 
State of Germany,” said the director of the principal Saxon 
union of employers at the annual meeting of that body in 1907, 
** owes the supremacy of its industry in the world-market to the 
discipline asserted in its factories. The authority of the em- 
ployer is a precious possession, to defend which is our most 
immediate duty. We shall never yield when it is a question of 
a test of power on the part of the workmen, where the authority 

_of the employer might be menaced. For this authority is not 
merely the possession of the individual, it is a common good. 
“Modern economic development has brought to the front the 
-estate of the industrialists, who have superseded the old feudal 
landed proprietors as employers. Upon the efticiency of the 
- industrialists depend the nation’s power and progress. It is 
the duty of the industrialists not merely to provide the increas- 
.ing millions of the population with a livelihood, but it must 


126 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


primarily wage war against subversive endeavours in every form. 
Our battle against the trade unions is at the same time a battle 
against Social Democracy.’’ Saxony has not been behind 
in this movement for the coalition of capital: the Union of 
Saxon Industrialists numbers no fewer than 4,000 undertakings, 
employing 400,000 workpeople out of the estimated 700,000 
industrial workpeople of that kingdom. 

In this struggle with trade unionism the industrialists no 
longer count on the active assistance of the State. Knowing 
that any systematic repression of labour conbinations cannot 
be expected from the legislature, the weapon upon which they 
chiefly depend, and the one which combination naturally suggests, 
is that of exclusion, or, as it is called by the trade unionist—who 
is not slow to employ the same weapon when the opportunity. 
offers—boycott. In many of the largest of the works in the 
coal, iron, steel, chemical, and other industries of the North- 
West known Socialists are refused employment. Some of these 
firms institute a thorough inquisition into the antecedents of 
every applicant for work, and so effectively and so secretly is 
the exchange of ‘‘ black lists’ carried on that a capable man, 
whose reputation as an ardent trade unionist, or, worse still, as 
a Socialist, has preceded him, may go round the workshops of 
an entire district and be refused at every door, though there 
is work to do and a need for hands. The following is a specimen 
of the inquiries exchanged amongst such employers :— 

“X, born , has applied to us for work. He states that he 
has been employed by you from to We beg to ask 
you if this statement is correct. We should also be glad if at 
the same time you would tell us something about the character 
of X, whether he belongs to a labour organisation and if so to 
which. While assuring you of perfect privacy, we shall be glad 
to do the same service for you in return,” &c. 

The firm to which this letter relates is one of the largest in 
its special industry in Germany. No known Socialist is tolerated 
in its works, and suspicion of Socialist sympathies entails 
instant dismissal. There are some employers’ unions whose 
members are bound not to employ, at least for a period of from 
three to six months, workmen who take their discharge for any 
cause whatever. Occasionally the operation of a ‘“‘ black list ”’ 
comes to light, and more than one action for damages has been 











CAPITAL AND LABOUR 127 


successfully brought by aggrieved workmen in consequence. In 
one recent case the Duisburg District Court found the practice 
of boycotting to be ‘* against good morals,”’ so contravening both 
the Industrial Code (section 153) and the Civil Code (section 820), 
and awarded the plaintiff £7 as compensation for deprivation 
of employment. 

Struggles carried on under such circumstances are bound to 
be bitter and to iay the foundation for much future difficulty. 
The employers contend, with some justification, however, that 
they have been driven into an attitude of aggression, and that 
they employ no weapon of which the Social Democratic trade 
unions have not first taught them the use. It was a conference 
of Protestant trade unionists of the kingdom of Saxony which 
formally declared in 1907: ‘‘'Those who, like the Social Demo- 
crats, take their stand on materalism and preach the struggle 
of classes cannot complain if the employers combat inconvenient 
trade unions with all the means in their power.” The significant 
fact is affirmed by Dr. M. Meyer, on the basis of a comparison 
covering the years 1900-1904, that while the fewest strikes (.e. 
in proportion to the number of workpeople) and also the smallest 
strikes (i.e., the strikes affecting on an average the smallest 
number of workpeople) occur in Germany, that country has the 
largest number of lock-outs, the number of which increased from 
28 in 1899 (affecting 5,298 workpeople) to 51 in 1902, 96 in 
1903, 182 in 1904, 268 in 1905 (affecting 118,665 workpeople), 
and 805 in 1906. More than a third of the lockouts of 1906 
were in the engineering trades, and 18°4 per cent. were in the 
textile industry. 

One of the severest defeats which the Socialist trade unions 
have received is that over the ‘‘labour day’’ movement. The 
idea that the 1st of May should be observed as a labour festival 
originated at the International Labour Congress held in Paris 
in 1889, though it was not then contemplated that work should 
on that day be laid down universally. For some years the 
German Socialists tried to popularise the holiday, and in some 
large towns with partial success. They even succeeded in 
obtaining recognition for ‘‘ labour day’’ in some of the wages 
agreements. ‘The employers as a whole resisted the idea of 
a general cessation of work irrespective of temporal and local 
circumstances, and their opposition won a signal victory in 1907, 


128 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


when the powerful Metal Workers’ Union formally declared 
against the observance of May Day, and the official organ of the 
Socialist party urged that the question should not be pressed. 

On the other hand, there is a far greater disposition in the 
South, in Bavaria and in Wurtemberg, to negotiate with the 
unions. There both large and small employers often prefer 
to deal with the responsible trade unionist officials, who 
have behind them the authority of their members, than with 
individual workmen or groups of workmen lacking the standing 
and the prudence which responsibility confers and without power 
to bind their fellows. Further, as the Wiirtemberg factory 
inspectors have repeatedly pointed out, the creation of strong 
organisations of employers and employed has encouraged an 
accommodating spirit, and even where disputes have occurred the ~ 
fact that they have been conducted by representative bodies, 
capable of taking a large view of the issues, has softened asperity 
and facilitated settlements on conditions which left neither side 
suffering from a sense of humiliation. 

But at retaliatory measures the employers do not stop, for 
they have taken a leaf out of the trade unionists’ book and they 
answer the strike pay machinery of the unions by a system 
of insurance against strikes and lock-outs. This new movement 
has already taken root in a number of industrial districts, and 
it extends both to large and small trades. Contributions are 
paid proportionate to the yearly wages bill, and in the event of 
a stoppage caused by a dispute a certain daily compensation per 
head of the men employed is paid. The insurance company 
established in connection with the Union of Metal Manufacturers 
embraced in 1907 1,048 firms employing 160,000 workpeople, 
and during the year 1906 strike indemnity was paid to 285 firms: 
in respect of 318,539 lost days caused by strikes and 642,741 
caused by lock-outs. In the some way the Union of Saxon 
Industrialists has founded a Society for Strike Compensation, 
and in 1907 over 1,000 firms were affiliated. 

A few words must be added as to the practical phases of the 
labour movement at the present time. The demands which 
trade unions of all types are agreed in advancing are those which 
are common to labour everywhere—higher wages and shorter 
hours of work. As to the former, constant progress is being 
made, and never so rapidly as during the past decade, though 


CAPITAL AND LABOUR 129 


in the meantime the cost of living has also increased. ‘ That 
the money wages of the proletariat increase Social Democrats 
haye never once denied,’’ said the official organ of the Socialist 
party recently ; ‘‘ they only deny that they have kept pace with 
the increasing income and capital of the propertied classes.”’ 
There is considerable difference in the remuneration of labour 
as between one part of the country and another. Industry for 
. industry, the highest rates of wages are paid in Rhineland and 
Westphalia and in Berlin, the lowest in certain districts of 
Saxony and the South generally. In general the maximum 
rates are still considerably below those usual in the same trades 
in the United Kingdom, until the unskilled occupations are 
reached, when only a narrow margin divides the two countries. 

Progress has also been made in restricting the duration of 
employment, though there is still great disparity as between 
different industries and different parts of the country. The 
coal miners of Prussia have secured a legal eight-hours day for 
underground work, butin industry generally the number of hours 
worked is ten daily, or sixty weekly, and these hours generally 
fall between six and six or seven and seven. In some industries, 
and especially the textile industries, from sixty-three to sixty-six 
hours per week are commonly worked by both sexes. It is the 
impossibility of arriving at a uniform reduction of hours on a 
moderate level which has led the Socialist party to carry this 
question into Parliament. In truth the “‘ maximum work-day ”’ 
movement is as old as the Reichstag itself. As early as 1869, 
when twelve hours a day were usual, the Conservatives and 
Clericals joined in a demand for a reduction, to be fixed by 
statute both in the case of males and females. Prince Bismarck 
then and later refused to interfere with what he obstinately per- 
sisted in regarding as the workman’s ‘‘ natural right”’ to work as 
long as he wished, and the Liberal parties of all shades being then 
under the influence of ‘‘ Manchester’ ideas, even to the extent 
of reprobating factory inspection, the proposal fell through. 
When the Socialists took up the cry in the Imperial Diet in 
1877, all they asked for was a ‘‘normal’’ day of ten hours. 
This maximum would have satisfied them until 1891, but in that 
year they advanced their demand to nine hours, and in 1896 an 
eight-hours day figured for the first time in their programme. 
Meantime, when the law of 1890-1891 for the protection of 

10 


130 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


labour was passed as a result of the Berlin Labour Conference, a 
resolute attempt was made by the Clerical and other parties to 
carry a clause to limit the work day for men to eleven hours, but 
without success, and this restriction was only legalised in the 
case of women. True to its traditional sympathy with the 
aspirations of labour, the Clerical party still brings forward every 
year a resolution calling on the Government to enact a maximum 
work day, which it now demands shall not exceed ten hours for 
adults of either sex employed in factories and workshops. 

In practice the ten-hours day does already exist in most parts 
of the country, but where it is the rule there are often exceptions, 
and it is in the interest of uniformity that legislation is desired. 
The building trades long ago adopted a ten-hours day ; and over 
90 per cent. of the wages agreements concluded in these 
trades stipulate a day not exceeding that duration, often with an 
hour less on Saturday. Further, over 60 per cent. of all the 
factories in Prussia work ten hours daily, the principal exceptions 
being the textile factories, and especially those engaged on 
low-class goods. In the engineering trade while ten hours are 
the rule, as many as ten and a half, or sixty-three per week, are 
worked in the more backward districts, and as few as fifty-four 
per week in the more advanced industrial centres. The longest 
hours are worked in the smelting works and the rolling mills, where 
twelve per day, with merely nominal intervals, are common, 
added to which an extra shift is worked once a fortnight, 
bringing the week’s work up to an average of eighty hours. 

The attitude of the Government has hitherto been a halting 
one. Its sympathies are with the workers, but it bears in mind 
the burdens placed upon industry by the insurance laws and the 
general factory regulations, and it has no desire to overload the 
camel’s back. No one denies that the hours worked in some 
industries are excessive, and that their curtailment would be for 
the good of the present as well as the coming generation. Count 
von Posadowsky, the late Imperial Minister of the Interior, and 
for many years the warm-hearted custodian of the Empire’s 
social welfare policy, in opening a hygienic conference in 
Berlin in 1905, said truly that ‘“‘the future would belong to the 
nation which kept itself in the most healthy and efficient 
condition: to strive for the health of the masses of the people 
was to strive for the strength and welfare of the fatherland.” 


CAPITAL AND LABOUR 131 


Yet when asked in the Reichstag the same year to pronounce in 
favour of a shorter work day fixed by law, Count von Posadowsky 
declared his inability and added that he represented the attitude 
of all the federal Governments, which feared to overburden 
capital and disable industry. ‘‘ The more we develop our social 
legislation,” he said, ‘‘ the more necessary it becomes, in view of 
the industrial struggles between the different nations, to advance 
as far as possible side by side in these questions. The conditions 
of work are especially important in determining the capacity of 
the export industries.” 

Just as there was once a time when the textile industry of the 
Rhineland worked to a large extent seventeen hours a day in 
order to facilitate competition with England’s more highly 
developed factories and more skilled workers, so now a day of ten 
and eleven hours is maintained in the same industry purely out 
of fear of the foreigner. The pace of the Government’s advance 
will, therefore, for some time be regulated to a large extent by the 
attitude of industry, and that attitude is for the present hostile 
to any further reduction. It found expression recently in the 
Reichstag in the words of a National Liberal deputy, who stated, 
‘** German industry can bear no more restrictions. If protective 
regulations are carried further employers will be ruined. For 
that reason I call upon the Government to ‘slow down.’” And 
the policy of ‘“‘slowing down” is the policy which the 
Government has adopted. The only limitation of hours intro- 
duced by the amendment to the Industrial Code which was 
passed in 1908 applied to female workers, and it merely fixed the 
rule of sixty hours, subject to many exceptions. An investiga- 
tion made in 1902 by the Government into the hours worked by 
females employed in factories and workshops showed that of 
818,560 such workpeople, employed in 38,706 works, 86,191 
(in 6,768 works), or 10°6 per cent., worked nine hours or less, 
while 847,814 (in 18,267 works), or 42°8 per cent., worked 
from nine to ten hours (inclusive), so that over half already 
enjoy the protection which the new law is to afford The 
Socialists at present demand a ten-hours day for both sexes, for 
the whole country and for all industries, but they regard this no 
longer as their final objective, but as a stage on the way towards 
the goal of an eight-hours day, vid a halfway house of nine hours. 

One common objection to a legal reduction of the hours of 


132 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


labour, which is heard whenever the subject is debated in 
the Reichstag, is that the extra leisure given to the working 
classes would be unwisely used. (Even a Prussian factory 
inspector gravely stated in a recent report that the reduction o1 
hours had been accompanied in his district by an increase of 
illegitimate births!) But little apprehension is entertained on 
this score by those who remember the physical pressure entailed 
by the present system, which often keeps the workman thirteen 
hours from home six days in the week, and compels him to seek 
his only relaxation during a few hours of Sunday. Yet even 
Sunday rest, though enacted as a general principle for the 
Empire many years ago, is still far from being universal, for 
considerable State latitude was allowed; in some States there 
is no difficulty in obtaining sanction to Sunday overtime or to 
‘continuous working,’ which means for many men working 
seven full days a week. 

On the other hand, there is no conclusive reason to expect 
that the desired reduction in the hours of work will necessarily 
be accompanied by increased productivity. That this result has 
often followed where voluntary reductions of hours have taken 
place, even to an eight-hours day, is true; and were there 
no other motive save the desire for greater leisure behind the 
movement for shorter hours the same thing would possibly 
happen generally. There is, however, another motive, and it 
is the hope of widening the area of employment and so ot 
diminishing the number of the workless. The ‘‘ ca’-canny” 
movement is not without its adherents in Germany, who are 
actuated by no inclination to idleness or selfish desire to cheat 
their employers, but who see in restricted production an oppor- 
tunity of reducing the surplus supplies of the labour market, 
knowing that by doing this they will reduce competition and 
so benefit, wages. | 

A further demand is the regulation of home industries by 
imperial legislation. Hitherto the Industrial Code, in spite of 
all the many amendments which have been introduced during 
recent years, has almost entirely ignored these industries. 
The main demands upon which all parties are united are the 
registration of home workers by their employers, the placing of 
the domestic industries under factory inspection, the control of 
workrooms with a view to the enforcement of hygienic conditions, 


CAPITAL AND LABOUR 133 


the extension to the home workers of the three insurance laws, 
the use of wages books or lists, the prohibition of night and 
Sunday work, the placing of the home industries under the 
Industrial Courts in the matter of disputes, and the prohibition, 
as in Switzerland, of the taking home of work by factory 
operatives. 

In Germany the working classes in general have not the 
benefit of the strong lead in labour policy which the State and 
many municipal authorities give in this country. In Prussia the 
Sovereign has, indeed, endorsed the precept of more than one of 
his ancestors on the throne in his saying that ‘‘ State undertakings 
should be model institutions,’ but it was one of his Ministers of 
Commerce who, in replying to a demand that the standard of wages 
_should be raised in some of the undertakings under his control, 
declared that ‘“‘the State should not be in advance of private 
employers.’’ In the matter of wages it certainly is not, though 
the policy of social welfare which the State voluntarily pursues 
for the benefit of its employees—in such matters, for example, as 
housing, pensions, holidays, &c.—may make good this shortcoming 
in other ways. It is, however, a bitter drop in the cup of many 
workpeople in State employment in Prussia that combination in 
trade unions is prohibited and Socialist sympathies rule a man 
out of favour; in most other States a more lenient policy is 
followed. 

Among municipal authorities there has of late been a freer 
use of what Prince Bismarck called ‘‘ social oil,” and the 
wheels of the civic system have undoubtedly moved more 
smoothly as a result. In part this is due to the larger direct 
influence which the working classes have obtained upon local 
government bodies. There are few Town Councils in large 
towns without a labour (which inevitably means a Socialist) 
party ; it is generally less strong in numbers than lungs, though 
at least two important towns have during late years passed 
entirely over to the government of labour. On the whole the 
influence and the usefulness of these municipal labour groups 
consist more in critical than constructive work: they are quick to 
point out evils and defects, but slow to devise practical remedies. 
Nevertheless, with and without their assistance, many munici- 
palities have during late years adopted well-considered schemes 
of social welfare securing to their employees cheap housing, 


134. THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


pensions, holidays, &c. At the present time some 70 German 
municipalities now regularly give their workpeople a summer 
holiday of from three to ten days without reduction of wages. 
Trade union and standard rates, fair wages clauses, and similar 
devices for levelling up wages have not as yet, however, 
received a patient hearing in Germany. In public contracts it 
is seldom that more is done than to make provision for the safety 
and health of the workpeople employed and for the due obser- 
vance of the laws regarding insurance. It is questionable 
whether more than one German municipality enforces fair-wage 
conditions to every fifty which do so in the United Kingdom. 


CHAPTER VIII 
METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL CONCILIATION 


Statutory Workmen’s Committees—The employers’ objections to them— 
Functions of the Industrial Courts—Their limited action as boards of 
conciliation—Chambers of Labour—Proposed establishment of an 
Imperial Ministry of Labour—The wages agreements in the building and 
small trades—Their number and operation—Advantages and dis- 
advantages from the workpeople’s standpoint—Legal force of the wages 
agreements—Attitude of the Bavarian Government thereto—Attitude of 
the employers—Profit-sharing—‘ Social welfare” institutions—Factory 
colonies of dwellings—Antipathy of the working classes to employers’ 
philanthropy—Industrial Co-operation. 


LL that has hitherto been said about the relationships of 
capital and labour has brought into relief the deep-rooted 
hostility that exists between the two. For the present that 
hostility must be accepted as a settled fact. Reasonable though 
the German nature in essence is, there is here a unique exception, 
and it is safe to predict that every attempt made either by 
legislation or any other outside influence to conciliate these two 
antagonists will fail until the struggle has continued long 
enough to enable each of them to take the other’s measure. 
Warfare of this kind is still comparatively new in Germany; the 
strength of the rival forces is unknown, the conditions of the 
struggle are altogether novel. Both sides recognise that a great 
battle must be fought out before an understanding is possible, 
and for the sake of the issues at stake they are prepared to make 
any sacrifice. 
Nevertheless, palliatives of the prevailing disharmony are 
being tried in various directions. There have not yet been 
introduced in Germany the admirable boards of conciliation and 


arbitration which operate with such success in the leading 
135 


136 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


industries in the United Kingdom.*- The Industrial Code 
provides for the creation of Workmen’s Committees in collieries 
and industrial works of certain kinds, these Committees being 
elected by vote of the men and being intended to serve as boards 
of reference and consultation on matters affecting the interests of 
the workers. Many large employers are, however, unwilling to 
take advantage of this method of lessening the grievances of 
their workpeople, regarding it as an unnecessary interference 
with their rights, and a dangerous restriction of their authority, 
that workpeople should be able to state their views directly and 
collectively in so formal a way, instead of through the time- 
honoured mediation of the manager or foreman. Where, 
however, these Committees are established in a spirit of concili- 
ation and loyalty on both sides they have shown a considerable 
capacity for usefulness. 

In the event of actual dispute the official machinery of the 
Industrial Courts is always at call, should the disputants be 
willing to use it. The law requires the formation of these 
Courts in all towns with over 20,000 inhabitants, but they may 
be formed elsewhere at the option of the Government of the State 
or on the joint requisition of a given number of employers and 
workpeople, and they consist of equal numbers of both. That the 
406 Courts now in existence do not mediate oftener would 
appear to be less the fault of the workpeople than of the 
employers. During 1905 they acted as boards of conciliation on 
850 occasions: on 165 in response to invitations from both sides, 
on 175 on the invitation of the workpeople alone, and on ten 
only on the sole invitation of the employers. Only in 128 cases 
was it possible to bring the disputing parties together. 

The Workmen’s Committee is at best a private arrangement 
between the individual employer and his workpeople, and 
the trade unions and the labour party in Parliament have for 
years been agitating for the formation of Chambers of Labour 


* At the annual meeting of the German Society for Social Reform, held in 
Berlin in December, 1906, resolutions were adopted ‘‘ affirming the meeting’s 
conviction that industrial peace would best be promoted by the development of 
collective arrangments between employers and workpeople in the form of 
(1) wages agreements, (2) voluntary boards of conciliation and arbitration, 
and (3) workmen’s committees for individual works”; and it was urged that, 
‘after the example of Great Britain, conciliation boards suited to the various 
industries should be generally formed, these to co-operate with higher tribunals 
and to call in on occasion the help of prominent public men as advisers and 
arbitrators,” 


\ 


METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL CONCILIATION 187 


analogous to the Chambers of Commerce and Agriculture— 
that is, bodies which shall solely represent labour, shall ex- 
clusively watch its interests, shall be consulted by the Govern- 
ments and public authorities on questions affecting the working 
classes, and shall even have power to regulate the relationships 
between capital and labour within defined limits. The Imperial 
Government is willing to give Chambers of Labour constituted 
on the basis of parity, t.e., elected half by the employers and 
half by the employed, and so long ago as 1890 they were 
definitely promised in an Imperial Decree, which ran :— 

** For the fostering of peace between employers and workpeople 
legal regulations are contemplated regarding the forms in which 
the workpeople shall, through representatives who possess their 
confidence, participate in the regulation of matters of common 
concern and the protection of their interests in negotiations with 
employers and with the organs of my Government. By such 
institutions the workpeople are to be enabled to give free and 
peaceful expression to their wishes and complaints, and the 
State authorities are to be given the opportunity of continually 
acquainting themselves with the conditions of the workers and 
of cultivating contact with the latter.” 

Should these bodies come into existence they will at the outset 
be handicapped by prejudice and, what is even worse, indiffe- 
rence. For while the labour party claims that the Chambers 
should be composed entirely of working men, the employers have 
no desire to join them, regarding any such joint authorities as 
the thin end of the wedge of trade union interference which they 
are so resolutely resisting.* But at Chambers of Labour the 


* Since the above passage was written the Imperial Government has intro- 
duced a Bill for the creation of Chambers of Labour, to be established either for 
one or several branches of trade or industry, and to be connected with the 
associations formed under the Accident Insurance Laws. The members are to 
consist half of employers and half of workpeople with a president and vice- 
president (neither of whom shall be an employer ora workman) nominated from 
the outside by the District Administrative Authority, which will be the control- 
ling body. Membership of a Chamber is to be open to Germans over the age of 
thirty years who are employed in the district served by the Chamber and who 
have belonged to the trade affected for at least a year, and all sittings are to be 
public. It is to be the object of the Chamber to cultivate friendly relationships 
between employers and workpeople, to promote the interests which both have in 
common, to safeguard the welfare of the working classes, and to act as organs of 
reference and advice which the Government and other public authorities may 
consult on labour questions. Further, the Chambers are to serve as courts of 
arbitration and conciliation where Industrial Courts do not exist, and they will 
be competent to propose measures for the benefit of labour and to co-operate 


138 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Socialists do not stop, for it is their hope that they will pave the 
way for the creation of an independent Imperial Ministry or Board 
of Labour. Not only the Socialists, however, but the social re- 
form groups belonging to the burgher parties heartily favour the 
transference of labour questions from their present ressort, the 
Ministry of the Interior, to a separate Department of State. 
The Government has hitherto discouraged the idea on the plea 
that labour questions are often involved in other questions, and 
that a specific Labour Ministry would inevitably conflict with 
existing Departments. It contends reasonably enough that it 
would often be difficult to draw the line between what is specially 
a concern of labour and what is not: such questions as housing 
reform, factory and school hygiene, factory inspection, the in- 
surance laws, and the regulation of co-operation, emigration, and 
immigration are all mstances of questions which are capable of 
leading to conflict of jurisdiction. 

In the smaller trades, and particularly in the building trades, 
a method of preventing disputes, at least within fixed ‘‘ close”’ 
periods, has largely been applied of late years in the form of the 
wages agreement, known also as ‘‘ wages tariff.” In the large 
towns the building trades are almost entirely regulated by 
these agreements, which not only fix the rates of wages and 
the hours of labour to be observed during the contract period, 
which is generally two years, but lay down other conditions of 
employment, as, for example, the circumstances under which 
overtime shall be allowed. Agreements of the kind also apply 
largely to the brewery, certain branches of the wood, small metal, 
and other trades, but in the main it is the handicrafts, or the 
trades most nearly corresponding to them, which have embraced 
this method of averting disputes. The large industries have 
hitherto stood aloof, and in the engineering trades especially the 
wages agreement can hardly be said to have made its appearance. 
It is estimated that over 3,000 of these agreements, of all kinds, 
are now in operation in Germany, the great majority being re- 
visions of lapsed agreements. A large proportion of these were 
only obtained by the workmen after persistent struggle.* In 
with the authorities in formulating the same, as, for example, labour registries, 
legal advice agencies, unemployment insurance, the regulation of the hours and 
other conditions of labour, the provision of workmen’s dwellings, holidays, &e. 


* + All these agreements have been wrung from the employers by the labour 
organisations in strenuous and self-sacrificing struggles.’’—Dr. Fischer in the 


METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL CONCILIATION 139 


1906 alone 2,360 agreements were concluded between employers 
and workpeople, of which 1,119 were in the building trades, 326 
in the wood industry, 244 in the metal industry, 276 in the 
trades connected with food, drink, and tobacco, 192 in the com- 
merce and the transport trade, 114 in the clothing, textile, and 
leather industries, 84 in the paper and printing trades, and 55 
in other trades. These agreements affected altogether 317,487 
workpeople, and probably more than twice this number are now 
employed under agreements in the whole country. 

That the wages agreement is at best a palliative and no 
counsel of perfection is proved by the criticism aimed against it 
both by employers and workpeople, though by the latter its 
merits are held to outweigh its defects. From the standpoint of 
wages the advantage would appear to be with the men. The 
rate of wages usually fixed is a minimum; it does not follow 
that more will not be paid, but less cannot, except, perhaps, 
in the case of old men and young journeymen just out of their 
time, and even in these cases there is generally an express 
stipulation to that effect. The employers complain, however, 
that the agreements, which were originally held out to them as 
a means of preventing disputes, have in effect become ladders 
by which labour climbs to higher wages. An agreement is as 
a rule only concluded for a short period, at the end of which 
its terms need to be reconsidered; the workpeople naturally 
endeavour to insist, generally with success, that each revision 
shall denote an improvement in their position—a higher rate of 
pay, shorter hours of work, or both—so that the wages agree- 
ment, in effect, becomes an endless screw, which does its work 
all the more effectively because it moves slowly and sometimes 
imperceptibly; for in the regulation of wages, thanks to the 
German decimal system of coinage, increases of an eighth of a 
penny the hour are by no means uncommon. 

At the same time the wages agreement is not an unmixed 
good from the standpoint of labour as a whole. Broadly speaking, 
it plays into the hands of workers of inferior ability, and to that 
extent there is truth in the common objection that it is a device 
for paying such men more than they could earn under normal 
Reichstag, February 7, 1905. Of 219 ‘‘ aggressive” strikes in Berlin in 1905 


organised by the ‘‘ Free” trades federations 55 were for the introduction of wages 
agreements, 


140 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


competitive conditions of employment. On the other hand, it 
is a matter of common experience that these agreements, in so 
far as the fixing of wages is their sole or principal object, have 
no great attraction—because they are of no practical importance 
—for efficient workmen. The minimum rate below which work- 
men qualified by years or apprenticeship are not under an agree- 
ment to be paid is naturally based on medium capacity or output, 
and takes no cognisance of the men of all-round ability, who 
would always be able to earn this minimum rate, whether it were 
guaranteed by agreement or not. Yet even inferior men are not 
always protected by agreements, for the employer always reserves, 
as a final weapon of defence, the right to discharge the inefficient 
and the undesirable. Thus it happened in a South German 
town not long ago that the trade union leaders pressed the 
employers in a certain trade to conclude a wages agreement. 
The head of the largest undertaking concerned expressed his 
own readiness to do so, since his rates were already above the 
minimum proposed, yet at the same time he pointed out that 
one effect would in all probability be that, whether explicitly or 
not, the masters in paying a minimum wage would expect 4 
minimum output—a contingency not provided for by the draft 
agreement. The warning was disregarded, the agreement was 
concluded, and in due time it came into operation. One of the 
first results was the wholesale discharge of inefficient workmen 
who failed to earn the minimum wages. Conferences took place 
between the authors of the agreement and the employers who 
had thus protected themselves, and without any formal revocation 
of the minimum rates it was agreed that they should be dis- 
regarded, and masters and men be at liberty to make their own 
arrangements as in the past. The case mentioned was one in 
which the minimum wage was a time rate. Where an agree- 
ment fixes the rates for piecework the difficulty here illustrated 
does not occur. 

It will be understood that the legal force of these agreements 
is very limited. Inasmuch as they are concluded by non-cor- 
porate bodies they are, strictly speaking, only binding on the 
signatories, and neither employers nor workpeople outside the 
respective organisations can legally be required to fall in with 
their provisions. Several of the Industrial Courts and Boards 
of Conciliation have, however, adopted decisions which have 


METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL CONCILIATION 141 


greatly enlarged the importance of special agreements, for these 
decisions are, of course, only of local force. Thus the Essen 
Board of Conciliation and the Hanover Industrial Court have 
both decided in a building trade dispute that a wages agreement 
concluded between the employers’ union and the workmen’s 
organisations should apply to all workmen employed by a masta 
belonging to the union, whether the workmen were organised or 
not. While, on the other hand, unorganised employers are not 
bound by these agreements, sooner or later they are in practice 
inevitably affected by them, since an agreement tends to become 
in course of time a standard both of wages and other conditions 
of employment for the locality concerned. 

A decision in this sense was enforced by the Dortmund Indus- 
trial Court, in which a workman who had been engaged without 
special agreement by an unorganised employer claimed to be 
paid the rates fixed for his trade in the local wages agreement, 
while the employer contended that not the local standard rate 
but the rate usual in his own workshop should be the basis of 
payment. The Court held that not only the rates of pay but all 
other conditions of employment set forth in the wages agreement 
concluded in that trade should apply. It has also been held that 
where workpeople are transferred from one employer to another, 
as in the case of a business changing hands, the old agreement 
holds good in the absence of a new one. 

It has often been complained that where wages agreements 
have been concluded the productivity of labour has diminished. 
‘‘Convenient and conducive to equable calculation though the 
agreements may appear,’ writes the Chamber of Commerce for 
Upper Bavaria in 1906, ‘it must on the other hand be affirmed 
that the output of the individual workman has decreased. The 
guarantee of a certain minimum wage is no stimulus to activity, 
but the contrary. A workman may, indeed, be discharged, but 
that often leads to a strike of all the rest, in spite of wages 
agreements. Further, the employment of a non-union workman 
alongside of the unionists has been made impossible by the 
agreements.” These objections may hold good in special cases, 
but it cannot be contended that they apply on any large scale. 
Certainly they have not prevented the Bavarian Government from 
declaring emphatically in favour of agreements and instructing its 
factory inspectors to encourage their conclusion wherever possible. 


142 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


The attitude of employers in general may be indicated thus. 
In the building trades agreements hold the field in the large 
towns, and while the masters have not invariably welcomed this 
mode of reducing the number of disputes, they regard it as 
inevitable and on the whole as an improvement upon the old 
order of things, under which the workman had to strike for an 
increase of pay, but as a rule got it all the same. There were, 
however, several reasons why this industry should lead the way . 
in the adoption of agreements. In the first place it had suffered 
more than any other from labour disputes, the injury caused by 
which was increased by the short season within which active 
building operations are as a rule confined. Furthermore, the 
local character of the industry enables employers to recoup 
higher costs of production more easily than is possible in most 
industries. Hence the invariable effect of building trade agree- 
ments, increasing the price of labour, has been higher costs of 
production, with consequent higher rents, from which the 
working classes have been the first to suffer. Nevertheless, 
even in the building trades the agreements have not made equal 
progress in the small towns, where labour is but little organised. 

In many of the trades and occupations which partake of the 
handicraft character the wages agreement has also been intro- 
duced without difficulty, but again in large towns more than in 
small. In miscellaneous trades and industries it is still regarded 
as an innovation, while the heavy trades resolutely hold aloof, 
in spite of all the efforts made by the trade unions to obtain 
recognition for it. The Central Union of German Industrialists, 
which voices the opinions of all the great employers of labour, 
has formally declared ‘“‘the conclusion of wages agreements 
between employers’ organisations and the organisations of the 
workers to be altogether injurious to German industry and its 
prosperous development. The agreements not only deprive the 
individual employers of the liberty of deciding independently as 
to the employment of their workpeople and the fixing of wages, 
which is necessary to the proper carrying on of every under- 
taking, but they inevitably bring the workpeople under the 
domination of the labour organisations. The agreements are, 
according to the conviction of the Central Union, fully confirmed 
by the experience of England and the United States, serious 
obstacles in the way of the progress of German industry in 


METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL CONCILIATION 143 


technical matters and in organisation.”” That is the firm 
attitude of all the large industrialists, and fromit they are not 
likely to deviate for a long time to come. 

The plan of profit-sharing would appear to be but little 
popular in Germany. The premium or bonus system is largely 
followed in the engineering trade in some parts of the country, 
and the practice of giving Christmas or New Year gratuities is 
_common, but it is very unusual to offer workpeople a direct share 
in profits. On the other hand, what are known as “social 
welfare’ institutions are a conspicuous feature of the larger 
industrial undertakings—institutions and efforts for the benefit 
of the workmen and their families which go beyond the require- 
ments of the insurance and other laws for the protection of 
labour. Probably they exist in greater or less number in 
connection with most important works, and especially those in 
the coal, iron and steel, chemical, certain of the textile, and 
other manufacturing industries. The most common agencies otf 
social welfare are special pension and benefit funds which 
supplement the compulsory insurance funds, either extending 
the benefits obtainable under these funds or making provision 
for widows, orphans, and dependents under circumstances in 
which the legal provisions do not apply or are inadequate. 
Holiday funds for workpeople and their children, summer 
festivity funds, assisted savings banks, and the like are also 
common. Of more immediate benefit are the canteens, kitchens, 
milk depdts, &c., which are attached to many large works, 
enabling workpeople to obtain wholesome food at low cost. 

The provision of workmen’s dwellings is also common, and, 
encouraged by the Governments and the factory inspectors, more 
and more capital is being invested in this way, for the Insurance 
Boards which interest themselves in the housing question—and 
nowadays most of them do—generally lend to employers on the 
same terms as to building societies. 

In many cases these colonies are built from purely business 
and prudential motives. This is particularly the case where 
works have been built outside a town, as is increasingly common, 
and the only hope of obtaining a constant supply of efficient 
workpeople was to house them on the spot. In the colliery 
districts, as in England, a large part of the miners live in - 
dwellings built by the mine-owners. Many of the newer factory 


144 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


colonies to be found on the outskirts of large towns are in every 
way admirable. The dwellings are well built and commodious, 
the surroundings are pleasant and healthy, and the rents are 
below those charged for inferior dwellings in private ownership. 
Sometimes these colonies are composed of miniature villas, 
which almost suggest the suburban residences of the middle 
classes. 

It must be confessed, however, that the general attitude of the 
workpeople towards these benefactions, direct and indirect, is 
unappreciative, if not absolutely thankless. Often, though 
not always, employers have themselves to blame for this, as 
when the promised benefits are hedged round with conditions 
and reservations which take away all grace from the gift and 
encourage the workman to believe that not philanthropy but 
self-interest is the motive force. Most unpopular of all are 
the special pension and other funds to which workmen are 
compelled to contribute whether they wish or not, though 
whether they will ever derive benefit in return or even get 
back their subscriptions in the event of removal depends 
almost entirely on the whim of the employer. The system 
of pension funds which the firm of Krupp carries on, and to 
which workmen are compelled to contribute, is based on this 
one-sided principle. For years employees of the firm forfeited 
their contributions on leaving the service of Krupp, until 
a short time ago it occurred to some one to contest in the 
Industrial Court the legality of their retention. Judgment was 
given for the plaintiff, and as no appeal is allowed against the 
findings of such a Court a wide prospect of litigation is offered 
unless the statutes of these compulsory funds are altered. 
Already the workman who sued Krupp for debt has had many 
successful imitators, though the law does not allow an action to 
lie in respect of claims going back more than two years. 

Still more open to objection are many promised benefits— 
pensions, premiums, and gratuities of all kinds—which are 
- offered on such uncertain or exacting conditions that human 
nature would need to be well-nigh perfect in order to qualify for 
them, Here, again, it often rests with the arbitrary will of the 
benefactor to say whether a chance lapse from good conduct, 
as he or his representatives may claim to judge good conduct, 
shall cancel a long record of consistent service, for in nearly all 


METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL CONCILIATION 145 


the regulations which govern these voluntary charities it is 
expressly stated that no right is recognised. 

In the case of the factory dwellings the obvious objection 
applies that they restrict a man’s independence and make it 
difficult for him to negotiate on equal terms in the event of a 
conflict of opinion as to the relative rights of employer and 
employed, on which account the trade unions of all kinds are 
strongly opposed to them and do their best to deter their 
members from becoming tenants. Many of the contracts of 
tenancy are very stringent, not to say harsh. As a rule, a 
tenancy is ipso facto held to be determined with the cessation of 
the contract of labour; in other words, where no notice is usual 
—and this is the case in many industrial districts—a tenant may 
in strict law be discharged from work one day and required to 
quit his home the next. Much adverse criticism has been 
passed upon the colliery and factory dwelling-house, held on so 
uncertain a tenure as this, by social and housing reformers, and 
of all ‘‘ social institutions’ it might appear to be the one whose 
benefits are most equivocal. 

It would be unjust, however, to generalise upon this subject. 
A large number of the voluntary benefits offered by large 
employers—and especially by old-established firms which are 
already in the third or fourth generation—are the outcome of 
genuine benevolence, wide-heartedness, and a desire to do more 
for the working classes than legislation requires or the strict law 
of the labour market would permit. A host of firms bearing 
names of wide renown, and still more of only provincial or 
local reputation, have established for themselves a tradition of 
philanthropy and patriarchalism which anticipated the modern 
insurance laws by many years, and it is a creditable fact that in 
not a few cases they have continued their own sickness and 
pension funds side by side with those created under legal obliga- 
tion, so that their workpeople, in time of illness, incapacity, 
and old age, enjoy not only the benefits which are due in part to 
their own compulsory providence, but also the provision made 
for the same emergencies by pious founders whose foresight was 
greater than that of the State. 

The Bavarian Government, than which no German Govern- 
ment takes a livelier interest in the welfare of the working classes, 


lately published a report on the various institutions and agencies 
11 


146 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


maintained in the interest of their employees by the larger firms 
in trade and industry in that kingdom. It found proof of much 
genuine solicitude for the well-being of the workers, and was able 
to report that great progress had been made in this respect since 
the first inquiry of the kind in 1874. One significant change 
had, however, taken place in the meantime. While thirty years 
ago strikes were unknown in the factories whose workpeople had 
the benefit of these special forms of help and charity “‘ such an 
effect of social welfare institutions can no longer be affirmed.”’ 
The employers who reported on the subject were loud in 
their complaints of the ‘‘ingratitude”’ of their workpeople, who 
no longer showed the old appreciation of sacrifices made for their 
good. 

The change of mind may be variously judged—what to the 
benefactor often appears base ingratitude is defended by the 
labour leader as an assertion of independence and a healthy 
protest against patronage—yet the fact is as stated, and the 
experience of Bavarian employers is that of employers in every 
other part of Germany. The workman contends that the old 
patriarchal relationship is an anachronism, out of keeping with 
the modern conditions of industrial life. He would prefer that 
the voluntary benefactions by which he is encouraged to good 
behaviour should take the form of wages, which he would be free 
to spend in his own way; and it is possible for outsiders to respect 
at once the high motives of the unappreciated philanthropist and 
the scruples of the independent and ‘“‘ thankless ”’ workman. 

Only a few words need be devoted here to the subject of 
industrial co-operation, for while the number of co-operative 
undertakings established in industry is large, the great majority 
of these undertakings have no relation to the working class. 
Genuine productive enterprises have been established among the 
hand-weavers in several of the textile districts of rural Saxony; 
co-operation is the basis of many prosperous bakeries in the large 
towns; and workmen have formed productive partnerships here 
and there in other trades requiring little capital, but the working 
classes would not appear to have reached the degree of self- 
reliance necessary to any extensive application of the principle of 
industrial co-operation. An interesting case occurred in Berlin 
not long ago of a co-operative workshop proving the solution of 
difficulties between employer and employed. Rather than give 


METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL CONCILIATION 147 


to his upholsterers the advance in wages whicu they demanded, 
the head of a large furniture manufactory offered to establish 
this section of his men in business, providing them with most of 
the necessary capital on loan, and agreeing to take all their 
output at fixed prices. The experiment succeeded; the men, 
working for themselves, earned far larger wages than before, and 
the employer paid no more for his goods. 


CHAPTER IX 
THE WORKMAN 


The characteristics of the German workman—Comparison with the English 
workman—The difference mainly that between acquired and natural 
aptitudes—The neatness and smartness of the German workman—The 
influence of the school and the army—The factory bath and clothes 
locker—The workmen’s long hours and few holidays—Sunday relaxations 
—Socialist festivities—Attractions of the lottery—The value of social 
legislation—The insurance laws and their popularity—Socialist testimony 
in their praise—Expenditure in sickness and accident benefit and old-age 
pensions—The German workmen’s thirst for knowledge—A visit to their 
educational workshops—Herr Bebel as a Mutual Improvement Society 
debater—lLabour education societies—University Settlement work— 
Attitude of the authorities towards labour schools—Socialism and the 
theatre—The labour temperance movement, its origin and extent—Class 
awakening. 


SHORT time before his resignation, Count Posadowsky, the 

late Imperial Minister of the Interior, who will long be 
remembered for his zeal in the cause of social reform, paid a 
warm tribute to the working classes of Germany when he said in 
the Reichstag (February 6, 1906): ‘‘If Germany has just 
experienced a vast industrial expansion equalled by no other 
country in the world during the same time, it is chiefly due to 
the efficiency of its workers.”” The compliment was no less 
generous than deserved. The German workman possesses quali- 
ties—both technical and personal—of a very high order. Of his 
capacity his work is the best evidence. The day has gone by 
when the products of German industry could be summarily 
characterised, as they were characterised by a German professor 
in 1876, as of the ‘‘cheap and bad order’’: comparative cheap- 
ness remains, but while plenty of inferior goods are still produced, 
the very highest standard of excellence is also attained. 


It is natural to compare the German with the English work- 
148 


THE WORKMAN 149 


man, und the first difference which such a comparison brings 
to light is the German’s lack of independence. He both submits 
to an endless amount of direction and he needs it. Probably 
the trait is due to the fact that control and regulation at every 
turn are the lot of all Germans, at least of all North Germans, 
from the cradle to the grave, with the result that initiative is 
crippled and men come to regard orders and instructions as a 
necessary part of life. Works managers who have had under 
them workmen of both nationalities—whether Englishmen work- 
ing with Germans or Germans working with Englishmen—will 
be found invariably to agree that to the good qualities of the 
German workman self-reliance and trust in his own judgment do 
not belong. The broad difference between the German and the 
English workman is exactly the difference between acquired and 
natural aptitudes. Both learn their chief lessons in the school 
of experience, but what is added to their capacity and value from 
other sources results in the case of the German workman from 
technical instruction, in the case of the English workman 
from his practical mind and common sense. It is the old contrast 
between theory and practice: all the knowledge that theory can 
impart the German possesses, but he does not easily get outside 
his theories, and he is not even conscious of the limitations which 
they impose upon him. It would be better for the English work- 
man if he attached greater importance to theoretical knowledge, 
yet considering how he has been taught to despise it—and most 
of all by the example of his employer—the wonder is that he 
has achieved so much and still so admirably holds his own. 
Given a wise conjunction of theoretical knowledge with the 
practical gifts which he already possesses in so marked a degree, 
and the English workman need fear no competitor. 

Yet if the German workman is dependent he is also industrious 
and plodding. He is not quick, yet no one can turn out better 
work, if the right tools, material, and time are allowed him. 
If one were to judge him by the black pictures which are 
painted by reactionary politicians, whose imaginations are dis- 
turbed by the progress of Socialism and by its hold upon the 
masses of the people, it might be necessary to conclude that 
the German workman has lost moral equilibrium, that he lacks 
principle, and that his sole aim is the ruin of the industries and 
manufactures by which he lives, Such an estimate is strangely 


150 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


belied by the economic development which has synchronised 
with the growth of Socialism. The fine examples of modern 
architecture which are to be seen in every large town, the 
museums of industrial art, the very shop windows of every 
street furnish evidence that the workman’s skill and conscien- 
tiousness were never greater than now, and that, however bitter 
the relationships between capital and labour may be, the 
industrial foundations of the country as laid during the last thirty 
years have been laid well and truly, and that the fabric which is 
rising above them is worthy of the pioneer work that went before. 

No one can visit German industrial towns, and see the work- 
men in the streets and at their employment, without being 
impressed by a certain neatness in their appearance and a 
certain smartness in their bearing which, on reflection, he 
somehow does not seem to recall as obvious and matter-of- 
course characteristics of the working classes at home. Co- 
ordinating his observations with a view to relating cause with 
effect, he is unable to conclude that this difference, so favourable 
to the German workman, is the result of better wages or healthier 
homes. Is it a result of a more drastic school régime? Is 
industrial Germany taught from its earliest years to cultivate a 
cleanly exterior, an alert presence, and a respectful demeanour ? 
All these virtues are no doubt fostered in the people’s schools, 
though children of school age play on mud-heaps and run about 
barefooted in German towns as in others. 

Certain it is that the German boy of the working class in 
general exhibits a respectfulness and self-restraint, the German 
girl a modesty and absence of ostentation, which are not equally 
characteristics of English youth belonging to the same rank, and 
for this the schools, which still cling tenaciously to the old- 
fashioned maxim that children should be seen and not heard, 
may unquestionably claim a large share of credit. But between 
youth and manhood there is time and opportunity for forgetting 
many of the healthy lessons of school life, and it is here that the 
German system of man-making differs from the English in that 
it bridges over this critical interval between youth and puberty 
by two disciplines, each of which in its way effectively carries 
forward and strengthens the influences and impressions which 
have been created by the primary school. 

The first is the continuation school, and the second is the 


THE WORKMAN 151 


institution of military service. From the primary school the 
boy passes into the continuation school by a natural transition ; 
where the one leaves off the other begins, so that there is no 
break in the mental process, no perceptible slackening of 
authority, and no inevitable danger of sliding into loose ways. 
Where, as is the case in some towns, the municipal Labour 
Bureau takes upon itself the duty of finding employment for 
boys who are about to leave school, an additional guarantee 
exists that the habits of regularity which the school teaches will 
not at once be cast off. It is worthy of note that many of the 
large engineering works train their men from boyhood forward, 
taking the apprentice at fourteen years, directing his work at 
the continuation school—which may be a special school attached 
to the works—and so instilling into the young worker the 
traditions and spirit of the place, that by the time he is out of 
his time an intimate tie has been created. 

Regular habits are further confirmed by the military training 
to which every young man of full physical and mental capacity 
is subjected, and which now extends in the case of ‘‘ common 
soldiers’? (Gemeinen) to two years in the infantry, yet three 
years in the cavalry. Whatever be the need and value of such 
service from the national defensive standpoint, the disciplinary 
and educative results are by universal testimony most beneficial, 
while the spirit of order and the habit of working together 
with others which he practises enable the discharged soldier to 
fit naturally into the highly organised mechanism of modern 
industrial undertakings. If a German manufacturer in close 
touch with his men—or, better still, the practical manager of 
his works—be interrogated on the point, he will invariably 
answer in words like these: ‘‘ Military service makes men of 
the recruits, and they come back to us far more efficient as 
workers than when they left. For they learn obedience, dis- 
cipline, regular habits; they are more alert, quicker to under- 
stand, smarter in every way.” ‘‘ Ninety-nine per cent. of my 
men come back to me,’’ said the manager of a large machine 
works in the Rhineland, ‘‘ for I always keep their places open 
for them, and they are more valuable to me than before.”’ It is 
interesting to be told that when on furlough the first thing a 
soldier does, after visiting his parents, is to go on to the factory 
to see his old foreman and comrades, 


152 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


While military training exerts this valuable moral and 
physical influence on the workmen, the baths and washing 
arrangements which are plentifully provided minister to bodily 
cleanliness in their own way. The German factory laws re- 
quire facilities for washing to be provided in most industrial 
establishments, but many employers go farther and add shower- 
baths, which may be used by the men at stated hours in turn. 
Sometimes a nominal charge of a halfpenny or a penny is 
made, but usually they are free, and some employers even give 
their men twenty minutes or half an hour once a week in 
which to use the bath, which is supplied with cold, tepid, or 
hot water at wish. The wash-bowls and troughs are largely 
used both at the noon interval and the evening break, for a 
German workman has an aversion to being seen on the 
streets soiled with the dust and grime of the workshop. A 
changing room, with lockers for all the men, is a common 
feature of a factory or workshop, and here the out-of-door 
clothes are replaced by working attire. So much importance 
is attached to cleanliness and orderliness of appearance that 
apprentices are required on compulsion to do what their elders 
do voluntarily. ‘‘My foremen have instructions,’ said one 
large ironmaster, ‘‘to send back to the wash-trough any lad 
who is seen leaving the yard dirty.” 

To the influence of all these factors working together—the 
training received in school, the discipline of the barracks and 
the drill-ground, the encouragement of a proper pride in dress 
and general appearance—must be attributed the fact that the 
average German workman walks well, works well, and looks 
well. The explanation of the tidiness, orderly bearing, and 
smartness of carriage to which allusion has been made proves, 
in fact, to have a moral rather than an economic origin; these 
qualities are the result of training and not of social conditions. 

In his habits of order and frugality the workman is dutifully 
supported by his wife. It would be a mistake to suppose that 
every German woman of the working class is a domestic paragon. 
If, however, in Germany as elsewhere untidiness and neglect are 
to be found in the houses of the workers, as a result not of 
poverty but of idleness, the domestic sense is in general very 
highly cultivated, and the typical Hausfraw of the people is an 
admirable manager, who stretches her husband’s earnings to the 


THE WORKMAN 153 


utmost, feeds him well on a small allowance, keeps his accounts, 
pays his rent and taxes, and in general makes an ideal chan- 
cellor of the domestic exchequer, to which she not infrequently 
contributes by her own toil. German proverbial philosophy is 
full of maxims enforcing the domestic virtues and lauding 
the amenities of home life, and in spite of the inroads which 
industrial life has made upon the family circle they are far from 
losing their old application. These maxims may often be read 
in scrolls upon the walls, or embroidered upon table-cloths and 
hangings, in working-class homes, and familiarity does not 
appear to weaken their force. It may not be flattering to 
English pride, though it should be wholesome, to read in the 
report upon a visit of investigation paid to a number of English 
industrial towns in 1906 by a deputation of German trade 
union officials the verdict, ‘‘In modesty, sense of order, and self- 
respect, it appears to us, the English woman of the working 
class can learn much from the German. It is, of course, difficult 
to speak on such a subject without running the risk of falling 
into unsafe generalisations, and moreover many German working- 
class families are not conspicuous for these virtues. Neverthe- 
less, in no German industrial district will women and children 
with clothes ragged and tattered be found in such number or in 
such condition as in the Kast of London, or in a working-class 
quarter of Manchester, though in Lancashire there are compara- 
tively few married women in the textile industry, so that factory 
work cannot be blamed for this state of affairs, except that most 
of the women have been engaged in the factories before marriage 
and therefore have not learned housekeeping.” * Of working- 
class family life in Berlin particularly the Cross Gazette wrote 
recently: ‘‘In the course of many years’ observation we have 
learned to value the family life of the Berlin working and 
burgher classes. Hard work and the constant fear of going 
under here weld the family more firmly together than in towns 
in which it is easier to earn a livelihood and to preserve external 
respectability. A single Sunday excursion in the surroundings 
of Berlin, and even a Sunday walk in the Lindens or the Thier- 
garten, presents to every unprejudiced observer numerous pictures 
of family life which must warm his heart.’’ 

The German workman takes his pleasures soberly, though 

* ‘ Gewerkschaftliche Studien in England,”’’ p. 33. 


154 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


by no means sadly. For six days out of the seven he works 
nine, ten, and sometimes eleven hours a day, according to his 
industry, and excepting the Church and (in some States) one 
day in the year which is set apart for national repentance and 
prayer—the Buss und Betiag, which originated when Germany 
was in the throes of its struggle with Napoleon I.—there are 
no regular holidays, and even the attempt to make May Ist into 
a labour festival has been attended by little success. Hence it 
comes about that Sunday is devoted entirely to recreation. On 
that day the working classes will not be found in the churches 
but in the parks and woods if it be summer, and in the res- 
taurants at other seasons of the year. All the large towns are 
in both respects well supplied. Like the middle classes the 
workers take their picnics and pleasures en famille, and the 
spectacle of rough-handed toilers enjoying themselves on a 
Sunday afternoon in the parks in the company of their wives 
and children is a pleasing one and throws light upon the healthy 
solidarity which, in spite of all disintegrating modern influences, 
still in the main characterises German family life. There is a 
certain negativeness about this form of enjoyment which a man 
of active temperament might not readily appreciate, for a German 
workman can patiently sit for hours together upon a bench or 
a patch of sward silently smoking his cigar and gazing into 
space. It would be unfair to say that such a condition of 
mental inertia is necessarily unintelligent; rather, it goes with 
the essential simplicity and naiveté of the German nature, which 
is still on the whole frugal in its hedonism as in other things, 
requires no violent relaxations, can make a little pleasure go a 
long way, and can derive satisfaction from trifies. The Germans 
have coined a word to describe this mood of passive content: it 
is the untranslatable word ‘‘ Behagen.”’ | 
There are periodical races in all the large towns, almost 
invariably run on Sunday afternoons, but the workman does not 
trouble much about them, and is contented to watch the returning 
cavalcades when the sport is over. The younger men are much 
given to Sunday cycling, and there exist in the towns working- 
men’s cycling clubs of different trades and occupations, all affiliated 
to a national association covering the Empire and having an 
ageregate membership of 90,000. An outside pleasure in which 
workpeople of all ages and both sexes share is that provided by 


THE WORKMAN 155 


the jfétes and excursions periodically arranged during the 
summer months by the labour and political organisations; but 
while relaxation and conviviality are the objects primarily 
pursued, it is customary to combine with pleasure a certain 
amount of propagandist work, in so far as this can be done 
without openly transgressing the restrictive laws of public 
meeting and drawing upon the festive comrades the attentions 
of the police. 

The fact that the German workman is not addicted to the 
racecourse protects him from one strong temptation to gamble, 
yet there is another way open to him of seeking luck adventi- 
tiously, and that is by the public lottery. Labour leaders, 
jealous for the reputation of their class, sometimes tell one that 
the ‘‘ enlightened working classes’ are superior to the seduc- 
tions of the lottery, and ceased to “‘ play ”’ (spielen) long ago, 
when trade organisations came into vogue. Inquiry of the 
lottery agent does not support that complimentary statement. 
The lottery agent will reply that a large part of his customers are 
working men or their wives; that in the case of cheap drawings, 
for which the tickets cost a shilling or two shillings, 90 per 
cent. of the sales are to working people. Moreover, it is said 
that the women are more addicted to ‘‘ playing’’ than the men, 
and that children of ten exchange shillings for tickets which 
they confidently expect will bring them the “‘ great prize.” In 
the case of the expensive State lotteries it is common for several 
workmen to buy a ticket between them and share in the prize if 
fortune favours them. It is significant that in the working- 
class districts of the towns small cigar dealers commonly act as 
lottery agents, also that the results of the State lottery draw- 
ings are regularly published in the Socialist newspapers most 
read by the working classes. In the winter months the oppor- 
tunities of relaxation are more limited, for the German work- 
ing classes have no outdoor games, and the choice is virtually 
confined to the restaurant, with beer and billiards, and the 
theatre. 

Speaking of the efficiency of Germany’s workers in the speech 
to which reference has already been made, Count Posadowsky 
said: ‘‘ This efficiency must inevitably have suffered had we 
not secured to our working classes, by the social legislation of 
recent years, a tolerable standard of life, and had we not, as 


156 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


far as was possible, guaranteed their physical health. Quite 
recently a representative of the chemical industry assured me 
of this in eloquent words.’’ The effect of the triple system of 
insurance is to secure workpeople in times of sickness or accident 
complete medical treatment, either at home or in hospital, with 
such monetary benefits that the home can be maintained at the 
usual level of comfort without any serious depletion of family 
savings, where such exist, while pensions are granted in the 
event of premature invalidity and in old age. By this provision 
the weight of uncertainty and apprehension, which presses so 
heavily on the lives of working men concerned to meet their 
responsibilities as heads of families, is sensibly relieved, for, 
should the worst come, absolute want need not be feared. Of 
all the measures passed in the interest of the working classes 
during the past quarter of a century, the insurance laws are not 
merely the most beneficent: they are also unquestionably the 
most popular. They are still criticised freely, but only on points 
of detail and methods of administration: the workman would 
sacrifice any laws rather than these. Socialist criticism repre- 
sents the worst that can be said against the Government and its 
achievements; yet it was a well-known Socialist labour leader, 
Herr Edmund Fischer, who wrote in the organ of the Glass 
Makers’ Union in 1905: ‘‘ Let the Industrial Insurance legis- 
lation be depreciated as it may, it must nevertheless be confessed 
that the old age and invalidity pensioners take quite another 
social position to that of the incapacitated grandfather of twenty- 
five years ago, who was a load upon his children or was exposed 
to the scandal of being maintained by the parish. Every in- 
crease of the pensions is thus a piece of civilising work. The 
social laws are, it is true, only foundation walls, but they are 
these at least, and for that reason they are the beginning of a 
ereat fabric of human solidarity.’’ Taking a more practical view 
of the question, Herr Paul Kampfmeyer, the Socialist writer, 
said recently in the Sozialistische Monatshefte : ‘‘ The German 
industrial insurance legislation has had almost the same effect 
for labour as protective legislation. It means an actual economic 
gain of a milliard and a half of marks ’’ (£75,000,000). 

These laws are sometimes spoken of as though they were a 
benevolence to the working classes. The fact is, that they 
cost the worker heavily, though the necessary contributions are 


: 





THE WORKMAN 157 


willingly paid. The entire cost of accident insurance falls, of 
course, upon the employers; of the cost of sickness insurance, 
however, the workpeople bear two-thirds, the employer the 
remainder ; and towards the cost of invalidity and old age in- 
surance the workpeople and employers contribute in equal pro- 
portions, while the Empire adds £2 10s. per annum to every 
pension granted. The burden which is imposed on capital by 
these three insurance laws is considerable, yet as industry has, 
so to speak, ‘‘ lived into” the system of insurance and accom- 
modated itself to its obligations, the contributions have 
gradually passed into the costs of production as an item as 
inevitable as rent or interest. Not only so, but probably a 
majority of employers would be willing to acknowledge that the 
direct gain to themselves caused by the operation of the laws 
is more than worth the sacrifice which they entail, inasmuch as 
they make for the workers’ physical welfare and as a consequence 
for their efficiency, and help to maintain their standard of life 
at a higher level than would be possible if they depended, in the 
eventuality of ‘sickness, accident, and invalidity, upon their own 
unaided resources. 

A few figures will show the magnitude of the industrial insur- 
ance system. The number of workpeople of all classes insured 
against sickness in 1905 was 11,903,794, the amount of contribu- 
tions (workpeople and employers) paid was £13,860,000, and the 
amount paid by the sickness funds in benefits of all kinds was 
£18,860,000. The number of workpeople (including agricul- 
tural labourers) insured against accident in the same year was 
18,743,000, and the value of the compensation and benefits or 
all kinds given to the victims of accident and their dependents 
was £8,779,000. The number of persons insured in 1905 
against old age and invalidity was 13,948,200, the amount of 
contributions (workpeople and employers) paid was £8,064,000, 
and the sum paid in pensions and other benefits was £5,544,000, 
in addition to £2,367,000 paid in subsidies by the Empire. The 
average amount of the old age pensions granted in 1905 was 
£7 17s., and of invalidity pensions £7 16s. Between 1885 
and 1905 there were paid to insured workpeople in sick 
benefit £137,564,000, in accident benefit £59,895,000,' and 
in old age and invalidity pensions (since 1891) £58,108,000; 


a total of £255,367,000. During this period the workpeople 


158 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


have paid in contributions £149,583,000, and the employers 
£164,908,000; while the Empire has contributed subsidies to 
the amount of £19,840,000. 

- A well-known German essayist, Dr. Friedrich Dernburg, wrote 
a short time ago that ‘‘ The true ambition of the masses of the 
German nation is less ambition for economic amelioration and 
material advantages than for education.” It is, of course, 
difficult to say how far education is followed for the sake of 
the material benefits which it is able to bestow, and therefore is 
an indirect object of pursuit; yet every one who has followed 
working-class movements, and is acquainted with the intellectual 
life of the masses, will be ready to testify to the widespread 
popular desire for education, for knowledge, for a greater share 
in the spiritual treasures of the time. ‘‘The masses of the 
people,’ says the same writer, ‘‘ see in education endless per- 
spectives; their thirst for knowledge, like their ambition, impels 
them to the one aim, to be educated. More or less, all acknow- 
ledge that this, more than anything else, determines a man’s 
rank in modern society, that personality is won by force of 
education. All the means of extending and perfecting education 
are seized with zeal, and often with passion. The most social 
and certainly the most popular of Ministries would to-day be a 
Ministry of Popular Education in the most universal sense.”’ 

That, too, is all true, and the nation of which it may be said is 
sure of a future. In order to understand this ambition for 
knowledge so characteristic of the working classes, it is neces- 
sary to enter their intelleetual workshops and observe the tools 
which are there employed. ‘* You do not know the workman’s 
pride,” said a Socialist deputy in the Reichstag, on a recent 
occasion,* addressing himself to the occupants of the benches on 
the Right; ‘‘ we support ourselves by the work of our hands, and 
have laboriously worked ourselves upwards. We have painfully 
educated ourselves in the evening and night hours, while to you 
education came without effort; yet I would not exchange in- 
tellectual powers with you.” The words may well form our 
starting-point. 

And the agencies by which the working classes chiefly carry 
forward the education begun in the primary schools do not owe 
their existence to action from above, but are created and conducted 

* March 8, 1908, 


THE WORKMAN 159 


by themselves. Forty years ago Workmen’s Educational 
Associations (Bildungsvereime) were common in Prussia, and it 
was as a lecturer at meetings of such an association in Berlin 
that the Socialist pioneer, Ferdinand Lassalle, first came to the 
front. Even so revolutionary a Social Democrat as August 
Bebel was originally a member of one of these mild and strictly 
sedate and correct organisations, and literally imbibed the be- 
ginnings of his political thought at the innocent meetings of a 
Leipzig Mutual Improvement Society. Under the influence of 
Lassalle and other early leaders of Socialism the Workmen’s 
Educational Associations developed first a strongly Radical and 
later a Republican agitation, and in the end they were merged 
in the wider international movement of the masses which 
became known as Social Democracy. 

Outside the ranks of Socialism these associations still exist 
under different names, but the modern Socialists have merged 
their functions in the general work of the political and trade 
organisations. The usual practice is for a special education 
committee to be formed in connection with the local Trades 
Council or Federation of Trade Unions, and to this committee 
is entrusted the duty of providing for the intellectual as well as 
the recreative needs of organised and unorganised workers of 
Social Democratic persuasion. To quote from the rules of such 
a committee : ‘‘ The purpose of the committee is the intellectual 
elevation of the workers and their relatives by lectures upon 
themes selected from the domains of social science, history, 
ethics, pedagogics, and natural science, the last with the accom- 
paniment as far as possible of lantern slides; the holding of 
musical and literary evenings and dramatic performances, and 
the formation of exhibitions for the dissemination of good 
literature, works suited to juveniles, illustrated books, &e. The 
committee seeks also to exert influence on the arrangement of 
labour association festivities by the provision of suitable music 
and other representations, in order that even these festivities 
may more and more be worthy of the culture-movement of the 
working classes. The committee is further charged with the 
supervision of the labour library.’”’ The sum of £25 is placed 
annually at the disposal of one education committee of this 
kind, contributed in moieties by the Trades Council and the 
Social Democratic Election Association, in addition to the pro- 


160 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


ceeds of lectures, classes, concerts, and other gatherings, all of 
which go towards expenses. 

In Berlin the Socialists carry on a Workmen’s Improvement 
School, which conducts evening classes throughout the winter 
months, in which instruction is given on subjects like political 
economy, sociology, German jurisprudence, the history of litera- 
ture, history, and rhetoric, while special courses of lectures are 
held for advanced students. A whole course of lessons or lectures 
costs a shilling. The classes begin at 9 p.m. and last an hour 
and a half. ‘‘In accordance with its device, ‘ Knowledge is 
power, and power is knowledge,’” writes the latest report, “‘ the 
Workmen’s Improvement School endeavours in a certain sense 
to make good the wrong done to the workers by the dominant 
class, in that it confines the elementary school to the absolutely 
necessary subjects.’’ That may or may not be a just criticism, 
yet the popularity of the school proves the workers’ desire for a 
knowledge beyond that with which the primary school sends 
them out into the world. 

During the year 1906-7 1,705 persons attended the various 
classes, and of this number only 146 were below the age of 20 
years, 1,056 were between 20 and 30 years, 248 between 30 and 
40, and 50 above 40 years. There were 404 metal workers, 145 
wood workers, 81 bricklayers, 74 painters, 71 book printers, and 
other classes of workmen largely represented were shoemakers, 
carpenters, paperhangers, tailors, smiths, saddlers, carvers, 
bookbinders, lithographers, wheelwrights, turners, gardeners, — 
bakers, besides from one to four representatives of another 
hundred manual occupations. 

In the same way the General Workmen’s Educational 
Institute at Leipzig holds during the winter and spring months 
regular courses of instruction, lasting from one and a half to 
two years, in political economy, history, and social legislation. 
Most of the lectures are given on Sundays, and the others 
on week-day evenings. There is no charge for the classes, 
but it is required that the students shall belong to the political 
or labour organisations of the Social Democratic party. In 
addition public lectures on economic and social subjects are 
given during the winter, and labour libraries are accessible to 
working people in various parts of the town. A further branch 
of the Institute's work is the holding of high-class theatrical 


THE WORKMAN 161 


performances, concerts, and art and other exhibitions, for the 
special benefit of the working classes. 

Hamburg, Frankfort-on-Main, Dusseldorf, and Munich are 
other towns in which systematic efforts are made on the same 
lines to enlighten the working classes on science, philosophy, and 
questions of the day. For example, during last winter the 
Munich Working Men’s Educational Association held twenty 
courses of lectures, varying from two to twelve in number, on 
such themes as ‘“‘ Introduction to political economy,’ ‘‘ Agrarian 
reform and policy,’’ ‘‘ Political and culture-history of the nine- 
teenth century,’ ‘‘ Evolutionary periods in Bavarian history,” 
* History of political parties in Germany,” ‘‘ Industrial in- 
surance,” “‘ International law,” ‘‘ The development of co-opera- 
tion in Germany,”’ ‘‘ Modern poets and thinkers,’ ‘‘ Albrecht 
Durer,” ‘‘The German language,” and ‘‘ Theories of criminal 
psychology.”’ 

The lectures are for the most part given by well-known leaders 
of the party, labour members of parliament, trade union leaders, 
editors and authors, schoolmasters, and other friends of the 
people. Most attractive of all are the classes and lectures 
which deal with economic subjects. The lectures held in Berlin 
are listened to by crowded audiences of working men and women 
who, at the end of a long day’s work, have barely time to eat 
supper and change clothes before they hurry off to the meeting- 
hall half an hour or more away. The lectures are entirely 
scientific in character—it is Socialistic economics, and more 
controversial, more personal, more human than the economics of 
the chair; though never swerving from the text—yet they are 
followed with undivided close interest by hundreds of hard- 
headed and hard-handed trade unionists, whose genuine thirst 
for knowledge is one of the most striking and at the same time 
most pathetic things in the entire intellectual life of Germany. 

As to the correctness of the economic theories expounded I 
say nothing. They are the theories of Socialism; they do not 
pretend to objectivity, but are avowedly put forward as weapons 
from the armoury of argument by which the existing order of 
society will one day be upheaved, to be replaced by one in which 
master and man will change places. And yet the reproach 
which is commonly levelled by superior persons against the 
Socialist leaders, that they are educating their followers on class 

12 


162 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


lines and wilfully encouraging narrow and partial views of the 
State and of political and social science, comes with a bad grace 
when we remember how lamentably little the educated classes 
of Germany, with their twenty-two universities and their un- 
equalled system of higher schools, have done to meet the 
intellectual needs and longings of the masses, and to bring 
within their reach the knowledge, the culture, the civilising in- 
fluences which wealth has at command yet so seldom appreciates. 

Something is being done to bridge the gulf between classes 
which inequality of educational opportunity far more than 
inequality in material condition has created, and it is a hopeful 
sign that it is the rising generation which is taking upon itself this 
work of conciliation. In not a few university towns educational 
work is carried on amongst the working classes by students and 
other educated men who recognise that one of Germany’s greatest 
social evils is class alienation. In Berlin a band of students of 
the Charlottenburg Technical College led the way and the 
university of Berlin quickly followed ; since then the universities 
of Strassburg, Gottingen, Munich, and Freiburg have taken up 
the same work. The main idea is to offer instruction in 
elementary subjects to adult workpeople who would be out of 
place in the ordinary continuation schools conducted by the 
municipal authorities for young people. In Berlin the number of 
such working-men scholars has in the course of five years in- 
creased from several hundreds to a thousand during each winter, 
the intelligent metal workers forming nearly a quarter of the 
whole. 

It is interesting to know what the Social Democrats them- 
selves think of this conciliatory work. A contributor to the 
Neue Welt wrote a few months ago: ‘‘The work of these 
students (they are only a small fraction of the whole, say 1 per 
cent.) is honestly meant and praiseworthy. An enlivening 
breath of warm and idealistic enthusiasm emanates from this social 
work. ‘Those who, like the writer of these lines, have looked 
into the educational workshop cannot withhold the admission 
that the endeavour of these young men comes from the heart. 
The complete devotion to the work of popular education has also 
opened the eyes of many a student, and revealed to him a 
resource of popular power of which he never dreamed.” Efforts 
so appreciated can hardly fail to contribute in some measure to 


THE WORKMAN 163 


the abatement of working-class distrust and isolation. Class 
pride and aloofness on one side have hitherto been answered by 
the same unlovely attitude on the other, until the working classes 
have learned to look abroad for sympathy—to the international 
brotherhood of labour which knows no ties of country or of race. 

Stripped of phrases, the problem of Socialism in Germany as 
elsewhere is in essence the problem of social conciliation, and 
while ameliorative legislation will help in its solution artificial 
aids of that kind will be found to be less effective than the 
natural influences that flow from the approachment of classes 
and the cultivation between them of a closer community of 
thought and life. 

The same interest in the efforts of labour to enlarge its 
knowledge is not always shown by the public authorities. A 
short time ago one of the best known popular educators of the 
Socialist party in Berlin undertook to give at Potsdam a course 
of lectures on jurisprudence, and an announcement to that effect 
appeared in the Press. Before the day appointed for the first 
lecture he received a notice from the Potsdam Provincial Govern- 
ment informing him that ‘‘in order to the giving of such 
instruction the sanction of the school supervisory authorities 
is necessary in accordance with a Cabinet Order of June 10, 
1834,” and as that sanction had not been given the lectures 
might not be held. This ancient Cabinet Order preceded by 
seventeen years the issue of the Prussian constitution declaring 
that ‘‘ science and its teaching are free.’’ Moreover, the Order 
referred unquestionably to the imparting of instruction to youth 
in ordinary schools, and was intended to check the establishment 
of unlicensed private schools. Nevertheless, there was no 
remedy against the arbitrary forcing of a obsolete regulation, and 
the lectures were not given. In the same way a kindergarten 
lately established by the Socialists at Charlottenburg was closed 
by the police authority, and on appeal being made to the Govern- 
ment the act was justified by the provisions of a Ministerial 
Decree going back to 1839. 

Even in the matter of amusements the working classes are 
more and more going their own way. They have their own 
theatres and concerts, and working-men’s musical unions and 
athletic clubs exist in all towns. In Berlin the ‘‘ Free People’s 
Stage’ (Freie Volksbiihne) provides for the workers at very 


164 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


small cost dramatic performances of a high order. Dramas 
belonging to Germany’s classical period, as well as famous 
works by modern playwrights, both German and foreign, are 
chiefly presented ; political, historical, social, and problem plays 
are mostly favoured, however, and Schiller, Lessing, Ibsen, 
Hauptmann, and Sudermann constantly figure on the bills. The 
repertory for the winter of 1906-7 included plays by Goethe 
(‘‘ Faust ’’ amongst them), Shakespeare, Calderon, and Ibsen, as 
well as modern comedies by German and English writers, and in 
addition the society arranged concerts and art exhibitions. The 
interests of children are not overlooked, for the Workmen’s 
Athletic Associations of Berlin conduct games every Sunday 
during the summer months in various parts of the city and the 
suburbs. The children assemble at fixed centres, and are taken 
in bands to the playgrounds, and after play are returned to their 
guardians at the starting-places. In all these efforts party 
purposes are undoubtedly kept well in view, yet their educational 
and recreative value is not on that account diminished. 

One other endeavour which the working classes are making 
on class lines to advance their position individually and as a 
body should be named, and in many respects it is the most 
remarkable of all. This is the temperance movement which has 
sprung up in their ranks during the past ten years, and which is 
bearing fruit in every part of the country. 

The question of temperance in the use of alcohol is a relative 
question, the meaning and importance of which are different in 
every country. It is impossible, for example, to apply identical 
criteria and standards to two countries so unlike as England and 
Germany; and even in Germany itself diversity of climate, culti- 
vation, and race makes it necessary to exercise great discrimination 
in judging the drinking habits of the people. Broadly speaking, 
it may be said that beer still continues, as in the days of Tacitus, 
to be the national beverage of the true, original German. In the 
far North and North-East spirit is largely drunk, partly because it 
is a staple product of the country, partly because the population 
contains a strong Slav element. In the South, on the other 
hand, much cider and wine is drunk, the former in Wurtemberg, 
the latter in Wurtemberg, Baden, and Alsace, though of beer 
and spirit there is also a large consumption. Where, however, 
the German most differs from the Englishman is in regarding 


THE WORKMAN 165 


beer not as a luxury, but as an article of food, as which it often 
takes the place upon the table which in England is given to tea 
or coffee. The ‘‘poor man’s beer” is, therefore, no hollow 
phrase in Germany, and it is the recognition of its important 
place in domestic life that has secured for it an immunity from 
taxation which to the Englishman appears incomprehensible.* 
While, on the whole, the Germans are a great beer-drinking 
people, they are at the same time a sober people. It is no 
uncommon thing for a Bavarian workman to spend five shillings 
per week on beer, and an expenditure of three shillings is common 
in any part of the beer-drinking zone.t That, in spite of this, 
there is so little visible drunkenness must be attributed to 
several causes—the habit of piecemeal as distinguished from 
prolonged drinking, the absence of treating, possibly, to some 
extent, the habit of drinking in public view, but above all the 
small alcoholic content of the beer, which, as a rule, is about 
2 per cent. in Germany, comparing with 5 per cent. in England. 
Nevertheless, there is much abuse of alcohol in Germany, and at 
the Roman Catholic Congress held at Wurzburg in August, 1907, 
Father Neumann, of Trier, stated that ‘‘more than 80,000 
persons fall victims to alcohol every year in Germany.” 
Even where there is no absolute indulgence, the opinion has 
taken root in labour circles that the use of alcohol is detrimental 
both to the individual and to the class, and that the workers’ 
interests can best be served by a policy of strict moderation or 
entire abstention. Hence has arisen the labour temperance 
movement, which, originated by the Socialists, has gradually 
spread to other sections of the working class, until it now has 
active propagandists and a large body of adherents in all parts 
of the country. The most remarkable facts about the movement, 
indeed, are its spontaneity and its class character. For it no 


* I cannot resist the temptation to relate an incident of over twenty years 
ago which first brought to my knowledge—conclusively and once for all—this 
diversity of standpoint. It was in the seminary of a Berlin professor of 
economics and the subject under consideration was taxation. Beer was then 
about to be further taxed, and the project was not popular. The emphasis 
laid by the debaters upon the importance of beer as an article of food led the 
English student, greatly daring, to refer to the English principle of taxing beer 
asa luxury. The professor’s ‘‘eye flashed fire,’ as he thundered out, ‘‘ Yes, 
that is your one-sided English view!”’ 

+ The Imperial Board of Health (Gesundheitsamt) has estimated that the 
average expenditure on beer, spirits, and wine for every male over fifteen years 
is £7 yearly, and for the whole population £2 4s. per head. 


166 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


special society, and certainly no temperance workers of the type 
known in England, can claim the least credit. Its inception is 
due to no outside influence or stimulus whatever; at the confer- 
ences and meetings of the labour temperance reformers no 
representatives of religion, no ethical teachers, no spokesmen 
belonging to the higher social circles are ever present; the 
workman is appealed to exclusively by men of his own class. 

There is also no sentiment about the movement and no 
profession of high moral purpose; the more intelligent of the 
organised workers are simply persuading themselves that for 
physiological, economic, and social reasons the less use or even 
the entire disuse of alcohol is likely to prove advantageous to 
them, and in this purely egoistic sense they are welcoming 
temperance principles and with growing eagerness are taking 
advantage of the increasing facilities for practising those prin- 
ciples which come within their reach. 

It is true that in its temperance propagandism the Socialist 
labour party, true to its principles, seeks to wean the working 
classes from alcohol by appeals to class prejudice, and endeavours 
to convince them that it is a deep plot of the existing “ capital- 
istic order of society ’’ that the masses shall drink themselves into 
a condition of physical and moral degradation and economic 
slavery, and by reminding them that every glass of beer or spirit 
drunk is so much money transferred from the pocket of the hard- 
working labourer into that of the pampered agrarian. Yet this 
is but part of the well-understood métier of Socialist controversy, _ 
and appeals of the kind would be entirely impotent if unsupported 
by tangible arguments. 

The effects of this movement are most obvious to those who 
knew Germany years ago, before beer had forfeited the almost 
sacrosanct reputation which has immemorially clung to it. Even 
ten or a dozen years ago a teetotaler or a man who formally 
avowed what are understood in England as temperance principles 
was rare in Germany; to-day he is to be met with everywhere, 
for he moves in every class of society, and it is no longer singular 
to see temperance drinks served in licensed houses even to work- 
ing men. Trade union conferences exclude alcohol from their 
meeting-rooms. Berlin masons, who a few years ago had the 
reputation of being the hardest spirit drinkers in Germany, may 
be seen carrying to their work harmless bottles of milk, just as a 


THE WORKMAN 167 


Lancashire factory operative carries his tin of tea. Temperance 
cafés exist in the towns for the sake of the working classes much 
on the same principle as the English coffee-taverns, though cleaner 
and more attractive; and factory canteens by the hundred are 
conducted on non-alcoholic principles. Itis significant that there 
has, between the years 1899 and 1905, been a reduction in the 
consumption of beer per head of the population from 274 to 26 
gallons. In Munich, the capital of the great beer-producing 
country of Germany, Bavaria, the consumption of beer has fallen 
during the past twenty years from 109} to 64% gallons per head, 
and in Nuremberg, in the same State, the consumption has fallen 
during the past ten years from 75 to 564 gallons per head. The 
consumption of beer in England in 1905 was 334 gallons per 
head of the population. 

The Governments and the heads of Government establishments 
—most of all in beer-brewing Bavaria—are encouraging temper- 
ance amongst the working classes in many ways. When large 
public works, like railways, docks, and canals, are constructed, the 
authorities require the contractors to keep alcohol in the back- 
ground in all their canteens and to give prominence to non- 
alcoholic drinks. The factory inspectors are instructed to keep 
the temperance question in mind in their intercourse with 
employers. In State workshops special provision is commonly 
made for the ‘‘ abstinenten,’’ who are given the choice of coffee, 
tea, milk, and mineral waters, instead of beer, and in the Bavarian 
railway workshops this has been done to such an extent that an 
entire change is reported to have taken place in the drinking 
habits of large sections of working people, the use of beer having 
ceased] altogether in one depot canteen. It is also significant 
that the Imperial Insurance Board several years ago formally 
requested the Employers’ Accident Insurance Association for the 
beer industry to take steps to discourage the custom of allowing 
free beer to brewery workpeople. Since then a large number of 
breweries have abolished this custom, though from two to six 
litres (and even eight litres in Bavaria and Wurtemberg) are 
still allowed to the principal workers in most breweries. 

Nevertheless, this movement has emphatically sprung, and 
derives its strength, from below, and all that benevolent 
Ministers of State and departmental officials have done to combat 
alcoholism would have been ineffectual but for the fact that the 


168 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


working classes have taken up the question as a purely class and 
economic question and herein have been zealously encouraged by 
their party and trade unionist Press. 

A few years ago it seemed impossible that the movement 
would be seriously taken up by the central Socialist organisation. 
When it was first discussed at the Hanover congress of 1899 it 
was in a spirit of undisguised ridicule. Even Herr Bebel, while 
declaring himself to be a strong opponent of excessive drinking, 
threw cold water upon the little band of temperance enthusiasts 
who appealed to the congress for a ‘“‘ mandate,”’ and stated amid 
applause : ‘‘In my opinion we as a party are not called upon to 
debate the alcohol question ; we must not waste our energies on 
trivialities.”’ The advocates of the new movement were not, 
however, discouraged ; at the Mayence congress of the following 
year they secured a more favourable hearing for their views, 
though still the party held to the maxim that for Socialists 
alcohol (like religion) was ‘“‘a private matter.”’ But agitation, 
the free use of literature and the Press, and conferences in season 
and out of season, did their work, and at last the sympathy of 
many of the most influential and most trusted leaders and 
spokesmen of the party was won to the side of the ‘* water 
fanatics,’ as they were called. Hence it came about that when 
the great Westphalian miners’ dispute broke out at the beginning 
of 1905, the first advice given by the men’s famous ‘‘ Committee 
of Seven ”’ to the strikers was ‘‘ Avoid alcohol.” ‘* And not least 
to this appeal to self-restraint (writes a Socialist journal) it was 
due thai in spite of the enormous number of heterogeneous and 
undisciplined strikers who took part in that struggle the whole 
movement was characterised by the most exemplary quietness.”’ 
The final victory came at the Essen congress of 1907, when a 
formal blessing was bestowed on the movement, which may now 
be regarded as bearing the official stamp of the Socialist party, 
and as being directly associated with the other measures by which 
that party hopes to achieve labour’s ultimate ‘‘emancipation”’ 
from the thraldom of capital. 

Attention has been called to this movement at some length for — 
two reasons. In the first place it is a singular example of the 
spirit in which the German working classes are endeavouring to 
strengthen the consciousness of class in their own ranks and to 
consolidate labour into an estate which shall be able to stand 


THE WORKMAN 169 


alone, independent of outside influences, relying on its own 
efforts, and working out its salvation by its own unaided 
devices. More important, however, is the economic aspect of the 
question. ‘The conviction has taken hold of a large section of 
the workers that their industrial efficiency and their value as 
members of society will be increased by the practice of temper- 
ance. It is not from love of their employers or of labour in the 
abstract that they impose upon themselves this restraint; 
egoism and class interest are avowedly their ruling motives. 
For Germany’s mercantile rivals, however, it is the effect rather 
than the cause of this movement which really matters, and it 
remains to be seen how far the temperance crusade which labour 
is embracing, as part of a great class awakening, will lead to 
increased national efficiency. 


CHAPTER X 


THE SYNDICATES ° 


The concentration of capital and industrial enterprise—The principal industries 
syndicated—The effect of Protection in encouraging the growth of 
syndicates—Protective duties not the cause but the occasion—German 
writers quoted on the point—The abolition of Protection would not 
abolish the syndicates—They are symptomatic of a movement towards 
the more efficient organisation of industry—The principal forms of 
industrial combination now in vogue in Germany—EHxamples in different 
industries—The charges against the syndicates stated and considered— 
The price policy of the Coal Syndicate—Reference to the Spirit Syndicate 
—The practice of ‘‘ dumping ’’—Injury done to the manufacturing in- 
dustries—Instances given of underselling abroad—Testimony of German 
Chambers of Commerce on the subject—The complaints of the retail 
trader—The standpoints of capital and labour—The absorption of small 
by large undertakings—‘‘ Mixed”? versus ‘‘pure’’ works in the iron 
industry—Has the movement towards combination taken its final form ?— 
Trusts now openly advocated—A possible alternative is that the system 
of large combinations may break down for want of strong men—The 
attitude of the working classes—Certain trade unions favourable to the 
syndicates—Proposed legislative measures for the control of the syndi- 
cates—Attitude of the Association for Social Reform—Professor G. 
Schmoller quoted—Nationalisation of the coal mines widely advocated. 


as EVER before,’’ wrote the Austrian Consul in Berlin to 

his Government in 1906, ‘‘was economic Germany so 
entirely under the absolute rule of a group of men, barely fifty 
in number ; in no former period of industrial expansion was the 
old formula of ‘the free-play of forces’ abandoned to such a 


* Dr. W. Morgenroth, author of the monograph ‘‘ Die Exportpolitik der 
Kartelle ” (1907), has kindly read the proof-sheets of this chapter. He writes: 
‘‘T recognise therefrom that in fundamental ideas we to a large extent agree. 
From my standpoint your statement of the question is altogether correct.’ 
Perhaps Dr. Morgenroth on the whole, in the work cited, takes a more serious 
view of the influence of the cartells than, under present circumstances, seems 
to me justifiable. 

170 


THE SYNDICATES 171 


degree as in 1906, when the momentous decisions as to the 
extent of production, sales abroad, prices, the granting of credit, 
the raising of new capital, and the fixing of wages and rates of 
interest lay in the hands of a few persons found at the head of 
the large banks, mammoth industrial undertakings, and great 
cartells. The lion’s share of the industrial boom has fallen to 
these great combinations of interests, whose gains have been 
the larger the more their industries were ruled by syndicates.” 

The words deserve to be reproduced for the proof they afford 
that the German cartell and trust movement is attracting 
interest in wide circles. It is also true, as the writer suggests, 
that this movement extends not less to finance than to industry. 
More and more the provincial banks have been absorbed by the 
large corporations which have their seats in Berlin. These 
corporations have also combined amongst themselves, until to-day 
hardly more than half a dozen institutions seriously count in the 
financial world. Three of these work with a capital exceeding 
twenty million pounds each, and play an important part in most 
of the great financial operations by which German industry and 
trade are promoted in transoceanic countries, as well as in the 
combinations which are so rapidly completing the concentration 
of industrial enterprise at home. 

Industrial combinations are by no means of recent origin in 
Germany. A historian of inquiring mind has discovered that 
a syndicate existed as early as 1836.* Even the cartells of the 
modern kind began to appear early in the ’sixties, and associa- 
tions of producers were formed in the pig-iron industry in 1873, 
when protective duties still continued, under cover of which higher 
prices were charged to home than to foreign buyers. The cartells 
did not, however, make much progress until the close of the Free 
Trade era. Since then they have increased to such an extent that 
it is no exaggeration to say that almost the whole of Germany’s 
exporting industries are at the present time altogether or 
partially syndicated ; certainly no single important branch of 
production has kept aloof from the triumphant movement 
towards concentration. At the close of the year 1905 over 400 

* Following German usage, the terms ‘‘ cartell” and ‘‘syndicate’’ are here 
employed indiscriminately. Nevertheless, they are not, strictly speaking, 
synonymous. The syndicate denotes a higher form of organisation than the 


cartell, inasmuch as it generally acts as a sale agency for the affiliated firms. 
The purpose of the cartell proper is the fixing of prices and conditions of sale. 


172 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


cartells were known to exist, of which 19 were in the colliery 
industry, 24 in the stone and earth industries, 64 in the iron 
industry, 11 in the industries connected with metals other than 
iron, 10 in the glass industry, 46 in the chemical industry, 33 in 
the textile industries, 4 in the earthenware industry, 6 in the 
leather and rubber industries, 7 in the paper industry, 5 in the 
wood industries, 16 in the industries connected with foodstuffs and 
luxuries, 2 in the electrical industries, 132 in the brick indus- 
tries, and 7 in other industries. This enumeration, of course, 
disregards amalgamated firms, though these in more than one 
industry take a virtually monopolist position. Many cartells in 
the mineral industry are so closely related, however, that the number 
of independent organisations is much smaller than the foregoing 
figures might indicate. Thus the Siegerland pig-iron syndicate 
and the rolled wire, gas-pipe, boiler tube, and plate syndicates 
are all more or less dependent upon the great Steel Syndicate, 
whose breath can unmake as its breath has made them. 
Further, the mere recital of the number of cartells conveys no 
exact idea as to the extent to which industry is concentrated. 
Where the production of an industry is overwhelmingly con- 
trolled by one of these combinations—and there are many 
examples of the kind—the practical effect is that of ie trust in 
a modified form. 

It is a question still warmly debated in Germany ‘ia far the 
cartells and syndicates are a result of protective legislation. 
Long before syndicates existed Friedrich List, the father of modern 
Protection in Germany, wrote: ‘‘If protective duties for a time 
make home manufactured goods dearer, they will ensure lower 
prices in future owing to home competition.’”’ But in some 
iudustries the syndicates have to a large extent destroyed com- 
petition, so that prices are regulated by a double form of 
protection—against underselling from without and underselling 
from within. 

The fact that syndicates existed before the protective legis- 
lation of 1879 is proof that customs duties were not absolutely 
essential to their formation. Independently of Protection, there 
are other conditions which favour the successful syndicating of 
industries—e.g., (a) the existence of a virtual monopoly, caused 
by the comparative rarity of raw material, or its concentration in 
few hands; (b) the same natural monopoly in regard to half- 


THE SYNDICATES 173 


manufactured or finished products ; (c) favourable circumstances 
as to quality, production, transport, &c., may create partial 
or local monopolies in marketable articles, facilitating the for- 
mation of syndicates ; and other illustrations might be added. 
All these conditions have operated in the case of one or other of 
the industries which are now ruled by syndicates. 

Nevertheless, a certain significance must be assigned to the 
fact that the era of the syndicates has synchronised with the 
operation of the protective tariffs introduced from 1879 forward, 
and on the whole it is impossible to resist the conclusion that 
while Protection may not be the primary cause of the syndicates, 
it has greatly favoured their formation, and that without it they 
would not have reached their present dominating position. This 
view would appear to be increasingly held by German writers on 
the syndicate movement. One of the latest of these, Dr. W. 
Morgenroth, in an able criticism of the cartells from the special 
standpoint of the export trade,* writes :— 

** Since nearly all cartells, syndicates, or trusts aim at con- 
trolling the market and restricting competition between their 
members within their sphere of influence as far as possible, it 
must be immensely to their interest that foreign competition 
should be kept out of the market which they seek to monopolise, 
so that the outsiders may not disturb their policy there. For 
that reason protective duties are with most cartells the most 
important presupposition of really successful equipment and 
operation. Protective duties can only be dispensed with, 
without disadvantage, where their place is taken by natural 
advantages or monopolies. . . . Where there is a market open 
to international competition protective duties are the principal 
support (and at the same time the foster-parent) of the 
‘national’ cartells as we know them to-day. These duties 
form a wall round the territory syndicated, keeping out the flood 
of foreign and cheaper foods, and if this wall were to be torn 
down most of the cartells would be swept away by the inrush of 
competition.” 

Again: ‘Protective duties and cartells stand in reciprocal 
relationship. The cartells for the most part need for their 
existence protective duties, and protective duties, in order that 
they may be thoroughly effective, require cartells. It is therefore 

* «Die Hxportpolitik der Kartelle,” Leipzig, 1907. 


174. THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY — 


no accident that the real era of the syndicate in Germany began 
shortly after the change of fiscal policy which took place in 
1879.”' (p:)9). 

Even a discriminating defender of the cartells, Dr. R. Lief- 
mann,* is compelled to acknowledge the significance of the fact 
that ‘‘In Free Trade England the tendency to monopolistic com- 
binations has been very slight, much slighter, indeed, than might 
have been expected in the oldest industrial country in the world.” 
Dr. Liefmann, in a fair and temperate survey of the whole ques- 
tion, comes to the conclusion that while protective duties are 
‘‘ neither the cause nor the necessary presupposition of cartells,”’ 
they distinctly ‘‘ facilitate the formation of cartells.’”” He writes :— 

‘Tt is incorrect to say that Protection was the cause of the 
cartell movement, and that the entrepreneurs only formed cartells 
in order to exploit Protection to the best advantage. They are 
rather a product of causes lying far deeper—of the entire 
modern development of industry, with its increasing competition, 
the increasing risks of capital, and the falling profit. LHntre- 
preneurs did not abolish competition and form unions for the 
purpose of exploiting the duties, but in order to put an end to 
the severe competitive war ; they strove for Protection as well as 
for combination, the first in order to get rid of foreign competi- 
tion, the latter in order to prevent purposeless rivalry among 
themselves, recognising that protective duties brought them little 
advantage so long as the competitive war continued at home.” 

The close relation between Protection and the syndicates is 
not denied by this writer, and, indeed, it is proved by the fact 
that the syndicating of industry has been carried farthest where 
the greatest protection exists against foreign competition. 
Dr. Liefmann concedes the relationship when he says, ‘‘ The 
greater the export and the more difficult it becomes owing to 
the competition of other countries, the greater will be the need 
for cartells at home.” 

Granting, however, that Protection has been, if not the direct 
cause, at least the occasion of the majority of the syndicates, it is 
nevertheless unlikely that the relaxation of the protective duties 
would diminish the tendency towards combination. Some of the 
cartells are already virtually independent of foreign competition— 
that is, they could operate successfully either with or without 

* ‘ Schutzzoll und Kartelle,’’ p. 6, 1903. 


THE SYNDICATES 175 


import duties: notably the Potash Syndicate and, in a less 
degree, the Coal Syndicate, the one enjoying a natural monopoly 
and the other, within a large part of its sale area, a geographical 
monopoly. The real significance of these organisations is to 
be seen in the general tendency towards the aggregation of 
capital and the concentration of industry which they illustrate ; 
and the chief explanation of this tendency must be sought, not 
necessarily in ‘‘ capitalist greed,”’ as Socialist writers are fond of 
saying, but in the natural endeavour after more efficient forms 
and methods of industrial organisation. 

At the same time it is objected by many persons not un- 
favourable to syndicates on principle, that the undue protection 
afforded to them has expedited the ‘‘industrialisation’’ of 
Germany more rapidly than has been good for the country, 
and especially for the interests of agriculture, the small trades, 
and the handicrafts. The existence of a chronic scarcity of rural 
labour is a standing witness to the precipitation of economic 
changes to which the agrarian classes have been unable to 
accommodate themselves. 

The industrial combinations found in Germany at the present 
day are of various kinds. 

(a) The loosest form of combination is a union of producers 
created for the purpose of fixing the conditions upon which their 
goods shall be supplied either to the retailers or the public direct, 
including terms of credit, payment, discount, &c. Where the 
number of members of such a union is small, this plan of com- 
bination can be followed with success; the greatest difficulty 
arises when a multiplicity of undertakings has to be dealt with. 
In practice the wide latitude which is reserved by the affiliated 
works greatly restricts the efficacy of this form of combina- 
tion, which has nothing in common with the highly-developed 
syndicate. 

(b) A second step in the organisation of industry is the com- 
bination formed for the purpose of concluding and enforcing price 
conventions, and at present a majority of the German cartells 
are of this kind. ‘These price agreements may be concluded 
between the producers or between dealers who control a 
sufficiently large market. As a rule they fix the minimum 
prices at which definite goods and qualities of goods can 
be sold. 


176 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


It is the purpose of neither of these forms of organisation 
directly to regulate production. The combined firms continue 
to be rivals, though their rivalry is carried on under conditions 
which create a fairer field and secure to all a better prospect 
of remunerative trading. They no longer compete as to price at 
each other’s cost but at the cost of the consumer, who may or 
may not be better served owing to the less inducement to 
sacrifice quality to cheapness. 

(c) More restrictive in their purpose and operation are the 
sale conventions. In syndicates formed on this basis the pro- 
ducers subordinate themselves to a central organisation which 
acts in the interests of all equally, in return for their surrender 
of individual rights. This central organisation sells the whole 
marketable output of the affiliated firms, allots to each its share 
of such sale, and fixes prices. There may still be over-produc- 
tion, but at the risk of the firms which resort to it. Virtually 
the members of such a syndicate are reduced to the position 
of manufacturers working on commission. 

(dq) A further development is the syndicate whose purpose is 
to regulate the production of a particular industry and fix each 
producer’s share in the aggregate output. Here the* individual 
producer absolutely surrenders his independence and limits his 
profit-earning capacity. He cannot produce more goods than the 
cartell allots to him, and his proportion is determined according 
to invariable rules. 

It is obvious that but one further step—union of capital—is 
needed to arrive at the logical development of the cartell, the 
trust. : 

The highest degree of combination so far has been reached in 
the productive syndicates of the coal and iron mining and the iron 
and steel industries. The coal-mining industry leads the way; 
for though the syndicates in this industry are few in number they 
are of large extent, and cover almost the whole market. The 
largest is the Rhenish-Westphalian Syndicate, originally formed 
in 1898, with its headquarters at Essen. The Syndicate was the 
result of various attempts, dating so far back as 1878, to regulate 
the production and price of coal by agreements between com- 
peting collieries. Several loose and limited organisations were 
formed between that year and 1891, but in no case was a 
permanent form of combination found feasible. There are also 


THE SYNDICATES 177 


syndicates for Upper and Lower Silesia, working from Kattowitz 
and Waldenburg respectively, and the chief Saxon collieries are 
similarly combined. In addition there are eleven syndicates of 
various kinds in the lignite or brown coal industry, the principal 
being those for the Rhenish-Westphalian, Lusatian, Saxon, and 
Magdeburg mining fields. 

The productive syndicates in the coal-mining industry are 
supplemented by sale syndicates, working under the control of or 
in close connection with the main combinations, in such a way 
that the latter determine the entire conditions of the retail trade. 
The arrangements enforced by the Rhenish-Westphalian Coal 
Syndicate upon the retailers are so stringent that the latter have 
practically become mere agents subject to the will of a dictatorial 
principal. 

In the iron and steel industries the syndicates regulate the 

output from the primary processes to the marketing of the half- 
finished article. The principal syndicate in the ore-mining 
industry is the Association for the Sale of Siegerland Ironstone. 
The production of pig-iron is completely syndicated in all the 
important districts, and the unions work in close communica- 
tion. Of the five great syndicates the most powerful are the 
Pig Iron Syndicate of Diisseldorf, to which some twenty smelt- 
ing works belong, and the Siegerland Syndicate, comprising in 
1903 sixteen works, while the Upper Silesian works and the 
Lorraine and Luxemburg works are separately combined. The 
largest combination in the steel industry is the Steel Works 
Union (Stahlwerksverband), commonly known as the Steel 
Syndicate, which virtually controls the production, sale, and 
price of all half-manufactured goods produced in Rhineland and 
Westphalia. In this combination 31 undertakings are united, 
while within the syndicate there are special agreements relating 
to various products. 

In the half-manufactured steel industry there are between 
thirty and forty syndicates of all kinds, most of them being sale 
syndicates, though some regulate prices, and a few regulate 
production. The chief are those in the plate and plate goods, 
wire and wire goods, and pipe industries. There are also two 
associations of iron foundries, one established at Cologne and 
the other comprising a number of works in East Prussia and 
Saxony. 

13 


178 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


In the engineering industry proper there are few syndicates, 
and these are of very limited influence. The reason for this is 
less the unwillingness than the inability of this industry to 
combine on the usual cartell principles. 

In the small iron industry and the miscellaneous metal-working 
industry generally the syndicate movement has also been but 
little successful, though a number of price conventions have 
been concluded in Westphalia, relating, for example, to agricul- 
tural forks, locks, flat-irons, knife-grinding, and pins, while 
syndicates have also been introduced in certain branches of the 
copper, lead, and zinc industries. 

In the chemical industry the largest combination is that 
formed in potash mining, which has existed since 1884. 
Powerful and wealthy though it is, however, the Potash 
Syndicate has not had matters its own way, for the industry is 
still young, a large number of new potash mines have of late 
years been opened, and while the success of the syndicate 
depends upon the establishment of a monopoly, to do this is 
increasingly difficult. It is said that at the present time at least 
two hundred companies of all kinds are engaged in the profit- 
able business of potash mining. No general syndicate has 
been concluded in the chemical manufacturing trade, but several 
combinations of powerful firms operating on competitive or com- 
plementary lines have been formed. 

Other industries which have to a large extent been syndicated 
are the glass, wallpaper, cement, earthenware, spirit, powder, 
paper, artificial manure, sugar, leather, and certain branches of 
the textile and rubber industries. 

The Spirit Syndicate is particularly interesting as representing 
an alliance of industry with agriculture. Before the Govern- 
ment Commission which has for several years been inquiring 
into the working of the cartells one of the principal witnesses 
for this syndicate defended its monopoly by the argument 
that agriculture was by its instrumentality supported, and 
agriculture was in its turn the support of the State. ‘‘ Break 
down this pillar with thoughtless hand,’ he gravely said, 
‘‘and from the ruins nothing will emerge but the red flame 
of revolution.” 

In the beer-brewing industry the efforts to establish strong 
combinations have not been attended by success. The principal 


THE SYNDICATES 179 


reasons for this are doubtless the enormous extent of the 
industry and the difficulty of uniting rival breweries in a 
country in which beer production is so highly specialised. A 
further obstacle is the great development of the tied-house 
system, especially in Bavaria, where ‘‘free”’ houses are the excep- 
tion, and where the independence of the licensed victuallers has 
been absolutely destroyed. A short time ago a congress of 
Bavarian licensed victuallers appealed to the Government to 
release them from their intolerable position of subordination 
*‘ owing to cartells, agreements, and leases,’’ which made them 
‘‘the mere employees of the breweries.”’ 

There are four main counts in the case made out against 
the large syndicates which not only control production but 
regulate prices. 

(a) In the first place it is asserted that the syndicates, 
not satisfied with curtailing the costs of production and distribu- 
tion, and with checking the undercutting that formerly resulted 
from competition, use their power to raise prices unduly. 

(b) They are also charged with enforcing higher prices for raw 
and half-manufactured material sold at home than they charge 
to foreign buyers, to the prejudice not merely of home under- 
takings engaged in the final procesess of manufacture, but of the 
entire body of consumers. 

(c) Further, it is alleged in some cases that far from being 
able to cover the entire home needs, they have, protected by 
import duties, deliberately kept the production below national 
requirements in the interest of higher prices. 

(d) The dealers or middlemen complain that their liberty 
and independence have been taken from them, that their trading 
opportunities are injuriously restricted, and that their extinc- 
tion is the ultimate aim of these syndicates. 

So far as the facts themselves are concerned, there is ample 
evidence to prove that all the injuries and disadvantages com- 
plained of by dependent industries and individual traders have 
actually been experienced during the operation of the cartells. 
The difficulty is to apportion in every case the exact degree of 
blame or responsibility which attaches to the cartells. Prices 
have certainly increased during the operation of the Rhenish- 
Westphalian Coal Syndicate, and by general consent owing 
to the Syndicate’s policy. Dr. Morgenroth writes: ‘* While 


180 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Germany used to have the cheapest coal in the world, and 
even up the end of the ’eighties had lower prices than England, 
the opposite is now the case. In consequence of the Syndicate’s 
policy the German prices are now, in times of normal trade, 
higher than the English.’ One of the severest attacks 
made upon the Coal Syndicate occurred in 1907, and was 
conducted simultaneously in the Reichstag and the Prussian 
Diet, as well as in the Chambers of Commerce and the Press. 
Throughout North Germany the price of coal reached during 
that year a height hardly ever known before; industry suffered as 
much as private consumers, and a demand for the nationalisation 
of the collieries was heard on all sides. Yet even when 
the turn of the industrial tide came towards the close of the 
year the Syndicate advanced prices further. 

Herr Calwer, the Socialist well-wisher of the cartells, argues 
that the Westphalian Coal Syndicate cannot dictate prices, 
since it does not control the entire market, the competition of 
lignite always exerts a pressure in times of tension, and water 
transport facilitates the import of foreign coal. It should 
not be overlooked, however, that within a very wide area this 
Syndicate is almost absolutely supreme. Against 64,769,000 
metric tons of coal which the syndicated collieries of the Ruhr 
coal-field were entitled to sell in 1906, an amount consider- 
ably below their actual output, since it does not include 
their own consumption, the fiscal mines of Prussia had an 
output of only 1,014,000 tons, and the other non-syndicated 
mines an output of 610,000 tons. Further, lignite is so far 
non-competitive that at any price it is a poor substitute 
for coal for industrial use, and it likewise is to a large 
extent syndicated. As to the competition of foreign coal 
the Syndicate is careful to adjust its prices to geographical 
necessities, with the result that towns far distant from the 
seaboard yet enjoying the advantage of river transport, and 
thus having access to foreign supplies, are able to buy West- 
phalian coal at a cheaper rate than inland towns near to 
the coal-fields, and the same preference is shown to towns which 
can choose whether they will buy Westphalian, Saar, or Silesian 
coal. Thus it came out in evidence during the Cartell Inquiry 
that while the gasworks of the town of Essen, in the very centre 
of the Ruhr coal-field, were paying 12s. 9d. per ton in 1905, the 


THE SYNDICATES 181 


town of Dessau 300 miles to the east, was paying 11s. 74d., and 
that Hanover paid more than Mannheim for Westphalian 
coal, though nearer by a hundred miles to the source of 
supply, because Mannheim has the option of purchasing Saar 
coal and of importing from England by waterway. 

The basis of the price policy of the cartells is, in fact, 
differentiation according to circumstances. Shortly expressed, 
the policy is that of selling at all hazards at the best possible 
prices. The highest prices are charged for goods intended 
for home consumption. Here the cartell, if it controls the 
market, is able to dictate its own terms, so long as it takes 
care to keep below the competition line. A reduction is made 
upon these home prices, either direct or taking the form of 
a bounty, if goods supplied to German customers are intended 
for export. The reduction is supposed to cover the costs of 
transport to port of shipment plus a preference to enable the 
exporter to undersell his competitors in the foreign market 
The lowest prices are charged for goods exported by the 
cartell direct, and here the cartell would appear to protect itself 
very carefully against those of its customers who have the benefit 
of export rates. 

Before the Cartell Commission the Spirit Syndicate admitted 
that prices had increased as follows for first quality spirit :— 


Year. Maximum Price. Minimum Price. 
Marks. Marks. 
1889-1900 52.70 47.50 
1900-1901 51.70 46.50 
1901-1902 45.0 38-70 
1902-1903 49.40 46.10 
1903-1904 68.40 51.0 
1904-1905 72.20 65.60 


In this case the outside firms likewise benefited to the full by the 
higher prices imposed by the spirit ring; as one witness said: 
‘‘ The free spirit manufactories have filled their pockets owing to 
the high prices.’ During the years 1899-1905 some of the large 
Prussian spirit companies increased their dividends by from 
20 to 50 per cent. These high prices were obtained by the 
simple device of destroying or overriding competition at home and 
selling surplus goods cheaply abroad. The representative of g 


182 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


celluloid factory stated in evidence that spirit which cost 20s. 4d. 
in 1895, before the spirit ring was formed, cost in 1899 32s. 9d., 
and in 1905 48s. ld. A varnish manufacturer stated that 
spirit which cost his firm 28s. in 1900 cost 45s. in 1905, 
though the same article could be had for 25s. in Austria. 
Instances of this kind could be multiplied. That prices have 
in many cases been deliberately forced up to unreasonable levels 
by the action of powerful syndicates cannot be gainsaid. On the 
other hand, the effect has in other cases been less fluctuation 
and greater equilibrium ; the old alternation of excessively high 
and abnormally low prices has given way to a higher mean, which 
has certainly paid the producer better, and probably has often in 
the long run been better for industrial consumers. This is the 
claim advanced for the cartells by Herr Kirdorf, the Director- 
General of the two most powerful combinations, the West- 
phalian Coal and Steel Syndicates: ‘‘ The former excessive 
fluctuation of prices has given place to a more restricted move- 
ment on a medium level”; and though there may be doubt as to 
whether either the coal or the steel industry is a convincing 
illustration of the wholesome influence of the syndicates, there 
can be no doubt that even in these cases prices have on the 
whole kept within a narrower range than formerly. This 
favourable view is taken by Herr Calwer in the work already cited : 
‘* Excesses have occurred in the price policy of the cartells and 
will occur in the future, especially where a syndicated article 
enjoys a protected market and inland competition is as good 
as prevented. But in general the effect of the syndicates on 
price policy is not to be sought in the absolute increase of prices, 
but in the maintenance of more stable and equal prices. The 
pre-cartell era was distinguished by very frequent variations of 
prices, according to the state of trade and the force of com- 
petition. In times of increasing demand prices rushed up 
spontaneously and suddenly, and then after a short time, when 
excessive supply and over-production had set in, they rapidly 
dropped to a level that was disastrous not only for the capitalist, 
but for the workpeople employed. Such a ruinous movement of 
prices is impossible where powerful productive cartells exist. 
Prices may rise in times of good trade, but gradually and with a 
certain deliberation ; they will fall in times of industrial reaction, 
but here, too, the decline will be gradual. <A price policy which 


THE SYNDICATES 1838 


takes this form leads us out of the anarchical condition of things 
which existed in the pre-cartell era into a period marked by 
regulation of production, in which the existence of industrial 
undertakings is no longer threatened by the free play of wild 
competition. The cartellised concerns, alike in their profits and 
losses, are no longer, as was formerly the case, subjected to the 
powerful vicissitudes of trade.” 

The objection that higher prices are charged to home than to 
foreign buyers is the standing grievance of the manufacturing 
iron and steel works against the Coal and Steel Syndicates. 
The evidence placed before the Cartell Commission showed 
conclusively that this policy of selling cheaply abroad and 
dearly at home has been systematically followed by the Coal, 
Pig-iron, Steel, Wire, Plate, Girder, Wire Tack, Paper, Spirit, 
Sugar, and other Syndicates.* According to returns placed 
before the Commission the average price of the coal sold at 
home by the Rhenish-Westphalian Coal Syndicate in 1900 was 
10s. 83d. per metric ton and of that sold abroad 9s. 10d., a 
difference of 8°2 per cent. against the home buyers; in 1901 the 
prices were 11s. and 11s. 24$d., respectively, or 1°9 per cent. in 
favour of the home market; and in 1902 10s. 54d. and 9s. 10d., 
or 5°8 per cent. against. Similarly the average price of coke 
sold by the Coke Cartell in 1900 was 17s. per ton for home 
consumption and 16s. 14d. for coke sent abroad, in 1901 17s. 
and 16s. 104d., and in 1902 15s. and 18s. 1$d. respectively. 
These figures, however, deal with the sale as a whole, and 
ignore the far greater preference given to the foreign market in 
individual cases. Abundant evidence of this comes from the 
industries which have specially suffered. When the inquiry began 
the representatives of the iron industry praised the Coal Syndicate 
and the representatives of the Coal Syndicate praised the Iron 
and Steel Syndicates in return; each contending that the whole 
operation of the combinations was not merely harmless, but for 


* In its report on German foreign trade for 1902 the Imperial Statistical 


Office expressly refers to this practice of ‘‘dumping.” It says: ‘‘ Special 
mention should be made of the great increase in the export of iron and iron 
goods, these amounting to £1,500,000. . . . This large increase in the export 


of iron and iron goods, and especially of half-manufactured products like 
pig-iron, angle iron, malleable iron in bars, &c., is to be attributed to the 
unsatisfactory condition of the German iron industry, which, with a view to 
the continued employment of the works, relieved the home market by selling 
large quantities abroad, and especially to Great Britain.” 


184 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


the benefit of the community as well as of the industries affected. 
It seemed as if the investigation was superfluous and its issue a 
chose ugée. They had, however, forgotten the buyers of manu- 
factured iron and steel, who advanced a strong indictment against 
the masterful ways of the producing syndicates. It was shown 
that the Pig-iron Syndicate sold at home 21s. and 22s. above 
the international price, and that the Wire Syndicate had in 1900 
three prices, one for goods sold for home consumption, viz., 
£9 5s. per ton; one for goods intended for export, £8 10s. per 
ton; and one for direct sale abroad, £5 15s. per ton. The same 
preference to foreign buyers has marked the price policy of the 
Rail Syndicate, which exported rails to Belgium at £4 10s. 
(f0.b. Antwerp), while the Prussian Railway Administration 
was paying £6. 

A witness giving evidence as to the price policy of the Wire 
and Wire Tack Syndicate said: ‘‘ The managers of the great 
syndicates should really reflect before giving a large portion of 
their entire production to foreign countries in order to support 
and strengthen there industries which afterwards return to us 
the finished article and paralyse our industry in finished and 
refined manufactures. For instance, when the Syndicate sells 
wire tacks to the foreigner at 14s., and we at home have to pay 
25s. for them—that is, a difference of 11s.—it is certainly 
worth while to ponder whether one should not limit a great part 
of the foreign sales, which amount to over 45 per cent. of 
the entire production of the Syndicate, and in return raise 
certain industries at home by disposing of raw material at 
a cheaper rate. During the second half of 1900 alone the 
syndicate lost £43,900 on its foreign sales, but cleared a profit 
of £58,500 on its home sales.”’ The same witness added that. 
but for the action of the syndicates, helped by the tariff, building 
operations might be carried on in Germany at from 25 to 30 per 
cent. less cost, for nearly all building materials, except wood, 
were syndicated. ‘‘ We do not wish,’ he said, in conclusion, 
‘to go the way of the American trusts, for they destroy not only 
all self-dependence, but likewise all technical progress. Anda 
second thing that I have very much at heart is that through 
this drifting towards trusts the connection with the banks will 
become such that it can and must work to the detriment of our 
industry, which is for us of vital moment,” 


THE SYNDICATES | 185 


Illustrations might be multiplied from other branches of the 
iron and steel and metal industries, the paper trade, &c. The 
evidence given before the Cartell Commission is full of illuminat- 
ing facts bearing upon this phase of the syndicate question, and 
the same policy of foreign preference continues to the present 
time. The Cologne Gazette not long ago related the following 
illustration of how German manufacturers of finished steel goods 
have been injured by the cheap export of raw material by syn- 
dicated works. Some of these manufacturers had been in the habit 
of selling to Holland 10,000 tons of wire nails and the material 
from which Dutch works manufactured 4,000 tons more. Owing 
to the establishment of new rolled wire works, encouraged by 
the prosperity of the syndicated works, there began a serious 
_ over-production of raw material, so that the home market was 
glutted and the excess had to be sold at any price to Holland. 
Hence arose several new wire works in that country, with the 
result that not only were manufactured goods no longer imported 
but goods made from German raw material were now exported to 
Germany and sold 25 per cent. below the home market price. 

The Duisburg Chamber of Commerce reported in 1905: 
‘Less satisfactory during the year was the position of the 
manufacturing iron industry in so far as it is not united in 
cartells. Raw material was systematically sold abroad by the 
syndicates more cheaply than to local industry, with the result 
that export was made impossible or was at least attended by 
sacrifice.’ Dr. Morgenroth also writes: ‘‘ For years the reports 
of almost all Chambers of Commerce have been full of com- 
plaints on the subject. Various industries have, owing to this 
policy of the cartells, been developed abroad. The Rhine 
shipbuilding industry has in part, owing to this reason, been 
transferred from Germany to Holland, where in a customs-free 
market (in which Germany, Belgium, and England naturally 
underbid each other) the yards can buy their plates and sheets 
much cheaper than the German cartell sells them to the German 
yards. So, too, the iron construction works in Holland have 
become marvellously efficient, principally owing to cheap German 
steel, and in Belgium the drawn wire industry is said to have 
been built up by cheap German material.’ * 

On the other hand, Dr. Liefmann + contends that ‘‘ The 
* «« Die Exportpolitik der Kartelle.” p. 46. t¢ ‘‘ Schutzzoll und Kartelle,” p. 30. 


186 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


cheap export of raw and half-manufactured material, as furthered 
to a certain extent by the cartells, maintains and increases the 
economic power of Germany abroad. The ability of the finishing 
industries to compete with foreign rivals is not weakened by this 
export, but by the high prices which the producers of raw material 
are able to obtain at home owing to the cartells.”” It is, how- 
ever, obvious that these high prices inflict injury upon home 
manufacturers in a double way—they make production dearer, 
and by so doing they encourage foreign competition. This 
writer proceeds to admit that ‘‘If such effects should ever be 
of protracted duration measures should be adopted against the 
cartells concerned, as indeed against all excessive price-move- 
ments, so soon as natural correctives prove futile’’—a charac- 
teristic example of the German faith that when every other 
comfort fails the State can always be relied on to act the part 
of the deus ex machina. 

The cartells acknowledge that they injure the finishing indus- 
tries by the preference shown to foreign buyers, since they pay 
these works export bounties in the form of a rebate of a portion 
of the price of raw material used in exported products.* The 
Rhenish-Westphalian and Siegerland Pig-iron Cartells began to 
do this in 1882 in the case of raw iron supplied to rolling mills, 
and the Rolled Wire Syndicate followed suit in 1888 in relation 
to the wire-drawing works. These export bounties were at 
first a temporary expedient, but since 1892 and 1893 they have 
become a recognised feature of syndicate policy. The Steel 
Syndicate lately increased the export rebate from 5s. to 15s. 
per ton on half-manufactured iron intended for export, and 
applied this reduction to all works, whether belonging to unions 
or not. The Coal Syndicate has also extended the export rebate, 
which had hitherto only been allowed to rolled iron works, to all 
consumers in the iron industry; this rebate is now fixed at 
1s. 6d. per ton of coal used. But, as Dr. Morgenroth writes: 


* It is interesting to have on record the theory of foreign bounties expounded 
ad hoc to the Association for Social Policy at its congress at Mannheim in 
September, 1905, by Herr Kirdorf, one of the iron and steel kings of West- 
phalia and the head of the Steel Syndicate : “The words export bounties have 
a somewhat evil taste. At bottom, however, export bounties are in the interest 
of the community, for in the measure that we are in a position to sell manu- 
factured goods cheaper to foreign countries do we receive raw materials and 
half-manufactured goods at cheap prices.” Yet the policy of the Steel Syn- 
dicate is avowedly directed towards keeping half-manufactured iron goods out of 
the country. 


THE SYNDICATES 187 


‘‘The cartell bounty is a mere compensation for the injuries 
caused to the German export industry by the fact that, owing 
to the operation of the cartells, they have to reckon with 
dearer raw materials than foreign competitors, and in most 
cases the compensation does not cover the higher cost of 
these materials. Bounties are only given to any appreciable 
degree in times of declining trade. At other times they almost 
entirely disappear.” * 

A measure aimed at ‘‘ dumping” was proposed by the Social 
Democratic party during the discussion of the present Customs 
Tariff by the Reichstag in November, 1902. It was the prompt 
suspension of all duties beneficial to any industry whose products 
were proved to be exported at lower prices than were charged 
at home. The fatal objection to so summary a measure was 
that it would punish the innocent and guilty alike, and the 
resolution was rejected. 

_ As to the third objection to the syndicates, there can be no 

doubt that the syndicated industries on the whole have asserted 
a far firmer hold upon the home market than they held before. 
This is proved by the diminished imports of many of the goods 
which the syndicates produce, though it is a question how far 
this result is due to the combination of works, how far to the 
protection they enjoy in the form of import duties. Yet even 
here there are notable exceptions, and one such exception came 
to light in the course of the evidence given before the Cartell 
Commission. It was the case of the Tin Plate Syndicate, whose 
defenders admitted that though it was able, helped by a duty 
of £2 10s. per metric ton, to advance prices 88 per cent. 
between the years 1898 and 1900—the increase being from 
£14 9s. to £19 18s. per ton—it was never able to cover the 
home demand. The United Kingdom is Germany’s only serious 
rival in this industry, and 30 per cent. of the tin-plate required 
for home use had to be obtained from this country, whose manu- 
factures benefited by the higher prices enforced by the German 
works owing to the restriction of competition by the Syndicate. 
Professor Adolph Wagner summed up the evidence in this case 
in the following words: ‘‘ Far from having adapted the supply 
to the demand, you have only met the demand by raising prices 
50 per cent. higher than those charged by England, and even 

* «Die Exportpolitik der Kartelle,” p. 45. 


188 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


at these higher prices you have not nearly supplied as much 
as was needed.”’ 

The contention that the retail trader has received no more 
consideration than the consumer was amply supported before the 
same Commission by evidence from various quarters, and new 
illustrations are of constant occurrence. Referring to the rigid 
regulation exercised by the Rhenish-Westphalian Coal Syndicate 
and the affiliated Coal Trade Syndicate, the report of the Mann- 
heim Chamber of Commerce for 1906 stated: ‘‘ The wholesale 
coal trade is now almost entirely in the hands of the Rhenish 
Coal Trade and Shipping Company. The dependent retail 
trade finds itself restricted to the utmost by the measures 
taken by the Company. It was not able to derive any advan- 
tage from the extraordinarily large demand for coal, for its 
dependence on the Company prohibits it from buying English 
coal and prescribes for it a limited market. On the other hand, 
the year was favourable for dealers in non-syndicated coal.’’ 
How stringently the ‘‘ tied-house’’ principle is applied may 
be illustrated by the following notification, by which the cus- 
tomers of the Westphalian Coal Trade Company learned that 
their right to buy from a rival source was cancelled: ‘‘ We 
beg to inform you that from April, 1907, we shall be in a posi- 
tion to supply you with a good briquette of Rhenish coal. 
From that date, therefore, we can no longer allow you to 
obtain your supplies of this product elsewhere.’’ So far has 
the Steel Syndicate carried its policy of trade regulation that 
it now apportions to the dealers their separate spheres of 
influence, beyond which they are not allowed to go, and with 
a view to exercising complete control it requires registers of 
their customers, so that there is nothing to prevent it from 
eliminating the middle man altogether and selling direct to 
the manufacturers. 

The coal and iron industries, however, are not singular in this 
respect. Not long ago a Berlin firm of silk dealers wrote to a 
leading journal of that city: ‘‘ The dictation of the cartell of silk 
stuff manufacturers, with its arbitrary and rigorous measures, 
cries to heaven. The cordial agreement which had existed for 
years between producers and buyers has been changed into open 
hostility, and the Berlin firms are to-day only the vassals of 
the manufacturers.’’ 


THE SYNDICATES 189 


There is, indeed, wide and bitter complaint that the old tie 
between manufacturer and consumer has disappeared since the 
syndicates stepped in and converted the affiliated works into mere 
agencies. In a recent report the Duisburg Chamber of Commerce 
noted this change with regret. ‘‘ The works united in syndicates,” 
it said, ‘‘ take but the smallest interest in their customers, since 
they hardly need to make any effort to obtain and retain a fixed 
book of customers. All commissions have to be notified to the 
syndicates, and the affiliated works are simply allotted their 
share.” 

It is a significant circumstance that under the auspices of the 
Central Association of German Industrialists (Centralverband 
Deutscher Industrieller) a conference of representatives of leading 
syndicates and wholesale consumers of syndicated goods, 
particularly in the ironware trade, has been held for the purpose 
of considering a proposal to form organisations to secure the 
advantages of personal relationships between producer and 
purchaser, as they existed under the system of free competition. 

Viewing the question further from the interested standpoints 
of capital and labour, it must be conceded that (1) the syndicates 
have been attended by distinct advantages to industry, while at 
the same time (2) they have not proved yet so injurious to the 
working classes as was predicted and seemed likely during the 
earlier stages of the movement. The capitalist theory of 
combination is straightforward and not unattractive. Hither the 
producers may compete with each other on the principle of 
every man for himself, which means war all round without 
quarter, or they may call a truce to competition, join forces, and 
divide the spoils of a bloodless victory according to a fixed plan. 
Obviously commerce conducted on such peaceful principles 
denotes an advance upon the unrestricted rivalry of unequal 
forces. 

Not only does it convert trading, from being a game of 
chance in which the rewards are uncertain, into one of science 
in which there are prizes for all and blanks for none, but it 
leads to economy of effort and prevention of wastage in many 
directions, with the result that capital receives a higher and 
possibly on the whole a more equal return. 

It is on this ground the cartells and syndicates and un- 
admitted trusts of Germany are chiefly defended by their 


1909 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


originators among themselves, and from this standpoint the 
success achieved has been very notable. 

For a time, indeed, the cartells may have protected 
inefficient undertakings against the extinction which, sooner 
or later, befalls the unfit, yet on the other hand many such 
undertakings have disappeared by the process of amalgama- 
tion. Nevertheless, there is as before a considerable difference 
between individual concerns even though they are now joined 
in the same combination. Syndicate or no syndicate, modern 
machinery, improved methods, skilled and well-paid labour, 
efficient organisation and co-ordination of effort, and careful 
management mean lower costs of production, so that works 
which have these advantages at command—the price of 
syndicated goods being the same all round—are able to show 
the best returns. The fact that sales are to a certain extent 
guaranteed releases effort in the direction of distribution and 
allows of its concentration upon more efficient production. 
Obviously, too, the syndicating of industries facilitates specialisa- 
tion, to the advantage at once of quality: and economy of pro- 
duction. It is Herr Calwer’s opinion that ‘‘ While amongst the 
many cartells which exist there may be some which, owing to 
special circumstances, afford no incentive to progress, it must be 
accepted as a general rule that cartellisation has helped to increase 
the productivity of industrial labour.’’ Another effect is that a 
syndicated industry is kept in closertouch with themarket. There 
is less working in the dark, less chance, more adaptation, greater 
equalisation of supply to demand. Yet if production has been 
developed upon more regular and more healthy lines, over- 
production has by no means been prevented, in proof of which 
assertion it is only necessary to point again to the “‘ dumping ”’ 
abroad at low prices of goods which cannot be sold at home. 

One direct result of the syndicating of the leading industries 
has been the strengthening of the large undertakings at the 
expense of the small ones, and this result is variously judged. 
One of the principal arguments by which the formation of 
the Coal Syndicate in 1893 was justified was that it would 
discourage concentration, and by the method of annual apportion- 
ment would give a chance to the small collieries, provided only 
these were willing to join the combination. Such has not been 
the effect of the Syndicate, for the large collieries at once steadily 


THE SYNDICATES 191 


increased their workings in order to secure an increased share of 
the output, while the share that fell to the struggling small com- 
panies hardly increased at all. 

In order to carry out the original idea more faithfully the plan of 
annual allotments was changed on the renewal of the Syndicate in 
1903, and the participatory shares were fixed until 1915, with the 
proviso that larger shares might only be claimed in proportion to 
the increased aggregate sale. But this restriction did not suit the 
large colliery companies, which began to buy up the smaller ones, 
encouraged by the rule allowing any company which absorbs 
another to claim the latter’s share in the output, whether the 
absorbed workings should be closed or not. Then began a period 
of closing down which, though it did not last long in an acute 
form, created a great displacement of labour and much distress 
to the miners and their families concerned, for in some districts 
whole villages were deserted. So far did the closing of collieries 
go, that in 1905 an urgent Government Bill was introduced in 
the Prussian Diet to require colliery owners before they 
abandoned any of their works to show proof that they were no 
longer profitable. As a price for the passage of a twin measure, ~ 
amending the conditions of employment in coal mines and 
particularly curtailing the hours of labour to eight per shift, and 
abolishing excessive fines, the Bill was dropped. 

The immediate effect of this new development, however, was 
to help on the very concentration which the Coal Syndicate 
was to have checked. Ten Westphalian colliery companies 
disappeared between 1904 and 1906, having been absorbed by 
larger ones, and of an aggregate output sanctioned for 1905 of 
75,584,133 metric tons 12 of the largest companies shared to 
the extent of 88,074,190 tons, or 50 per cent. 

Side by side with the formation of syndicates there has also 
sprung up another’form of combination no less important in its 
way, viz., the ‘“‘mixed’”’ works in the iron industry, 1.e., coal 
and smelting works combined, or smelting and rolling works com- 
bined, which are rapidly and inexorably crushing out of existence 
the ‘‘ pure’”’ works, engaged in a single branch of the pro- 
ductive process.* 

The tendency is no new one: what is new is its extent, and 
the growing difficulty of the ‘‘ pure’’ iron works holding their own 

* See Chapter V., p. 82. 


192 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


against the large syndicated works which rest on a double basis. 
For the formation of cartells places the associated undertakings 
in a specially advantageous position, since all the required raw 
material can be obtained inside the ‘‘ring,” and the choice 
before the still unsyndicated works is either to throw in their lot 
with the majority or be driven into insolvency. The ‘‘mixed”’ 
works, no doubt, represent a higher stage of industrial efficiency, 
yet the transition involves great hardship not only to those 
capitalists who have to adapt themselves to the new conditions, 
but to their workpeople as well, and the cartells are specially 
responsible for the change that is being painfully worked out. 

The question is often asked in Germany, Has the movement 
towards combination taken its final form? Few observers who 
have given attention to the subject would be prepared to answer 
that question affirmatively. When the syndicates were only 
feeling their feet, and were moving forward in the face of much 
public distrust, an attempt was made to win confidence by the 
assurance that the formation of syndicates would keep out the 
more dangerous combinations of the American pattern. ‘‘ Never 
the American trust,” said the authors of the early cartells; 
‘this is the final form.’”’ No one says nowadays that the cartells 
represent the last word on industrial organisation, for the simple 
reason that they have long ago departed from their original form 
and scope. Very early in the movement the larger syndicated 
works experienced the disadvantage of being joined to works 
lacking their power of expansion. They found their enterprise 
checked, their ambitions curbed, and that in the interest of 
smaller undertakings of limited financial resources. ‘The only 
remedy was a policy of absorption, and that policy they adopted. 
It is not impossible that the next step will be an extension of 
that policy, or a combination of absorption and amalgamation, 
and such a step will carry German industries—the coal and iron 
industries are specially referred to—a long way forward on the 
path that leads to the American trust. 

It is significant that a responsible body like the Essen 
Chamber of Commerce should be found advising the amalgama- 
tion of the two most powerful syndicates in Germany. ‘‘Itisa 
question worth considering by the Coal Syndicate,” it says, 
‘‘whether the time has not come for amalgamating with its 
powerful colleague the Steelworks Union, in order to maintain 


THE SYNDICATES 193 


its position against the too powerful undertakings of the united 
collieries and smelting works. The united Steel and Coal 
Syndicate would represent a ‘trust of trusts,’ and with the 
American Steel Trust would rule the world.’’ So, too, the 
Cologne Gazette, which has always been regarded as the 
official mouthpiece of the large syndicates in the Press, wrote 
recently, apropos of the amalgamation of several wealthy 
Westphalian collieries and smelting works: ‘‘ The more rapidly 
these amalgamations are effected, the more rapidly we shall 
reach the trusts, though they may not for years take a clearly 
defined form. The cartells and syndicates have proved to be 
not permanent but merely transition forms, and with the 
progress of the amalgamations their basis disappears and their 
interest for the allied works decreases. The trust, therefore, is 
not the invention of a ‘smart’ American brain, but is a 
necessary and logical economic development. Hence the 
amalgamations which are paving the way for the trust are not, 
as the (Prussian) Minister of Commerce said, something diseased 
and unhealthy; they rather denote progress; by the concentra- 
tion which they imply they increase economic efficiency and are 
indispensable to competition with the powerful industries of 
foreign countries. From this standpoint no objection can be 
taken to the increasing tendency to concentration.”’ 

There is another alternative so obvious that it would appear 
to be disregarded. All the great syndicates are the workman- 
ship of powerful men, the expression of their strength, the 
embodiment of their large ideas, and by them are alone kept in 
operation. No sudden edict of extinction seems likely to threaten 
the line of virile and masterful personalities which, after 
winning for Germany a recognised place in the markets of the 
world, turned to the organisation of industry at home and sought 
new conquests there. Yet the bigger the undertaking the bigger 
the man at the head is a rule, attested both by the suc- 
cesses and the failures incidental to private enterprise every- 
where, and there seems equal ifnot greater reason to believe that 
the permanence of the enormous combinations which have 
become common in the form of syndicate and cartell will be 
dependent upon the continuation of the race of industrial 
geniuses which originated them. Should the race become 
enfeebled, the very magnitude of the syndicates will prove their 

14 


194 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


weakness. From this standpoint, too, it would appear unsafe to 
speak of finality in relation to existing forms of industrial 
organisation. 

As yet the attitude of the working classes towards this new 
form of industrial organisation can hardly be said to have been 
clearly defined. Amongst themselves the labour leaders alternate 
between vituperation and a guarded criticism hardly to be 
distinguished from approval. Perhaps these contradictory voices 
can best be explained by saying that they represent the political 
and economic camps respectively in which German Socialists 
range themselves upon most great social questions, the com- 
batants of the one camp working for immediate party interests 
and those of the other keeping in view the necessity of watching 
closely every form of industrial evolution which seems to fore- 
shadow the ultimate embodiment of the Socialistic idea. 

On the whole the position taken is that of a waiting 
opportunism. On principle Socialists do not object to industrial 
combinations, however powerful, but rather regard them as a 
step towards the eventual combination of all the nation’s 
productive resources in one corporate union—the State of the 
future which is to own all capital, all property, all natural wealth, 
all the means of production, exchange, and communication. 
Hence the significance of the resolution adopted by the 
International Socialist Party at the Amsterdam congress of 
1904 calling upon all Socialists parties to hold aloof from 
legislative measures for preventing the establishment or Sth 
of employers’ combinations. 

For the present the interest of labour in the syndicate 
question centres in the two questions of wages and prices, and 
it is generally admitted that in so far as the syndicates are 
responsible for creating higher prices, they have at least 
exempted the workmen from injury by sharing with them the 
tribute levied upon the general body of consumers. 

- ** The view is quite fallacious,’’ writes Herr Calwer, ‘‘ that the 
cartells use their combined power in order to regulate the 
conditions of labour. The regulation of the relationships between 
employers and workpeople is at present an internal affair of the 
individual undertakings, and so we find that in general the 
individual works pay their workpeople variously, some treating 
them better than others in the same organisation. This freedom 


THE SYNDICATES 195 


of the individual undertakings regarding their workpeople does 
not make it impossible that the latter’s position may gradually 
become considerably altered, and this change is a consequence 
of the price policy of the syndicates, causing greater equilibrium 
than existed formerly. When in the pre-cartell period the 
prices of a commodity suddenly fell considerably, many under- 
takings were compelled to restrict production or to stand. The 
result was that the workpeople of such undertakings partially or 
altogether lost their employment or large reductions of wages 
took place. When, however, the prices of commodities rose 
greatly, production increased, thousands of additional workpeople 
were suddenly employed and wages increased proportionately. 
On the one hand the workman had the chance of securing more 
employment and higher pay, but on the other hand he was 
exposed to the risk of being suddenly thrown on the street or 
of submitting to a considerable reduction of his income. The 
eartells, with their more stable prices, avert both extremes. The 
fluctuations of production are no longer so great or so fortuitous, 
and the result is that neither employment nor the wages level 
varies so much as formerly.”’ 

Coming from an avowed friend of the cartells, who also differs 
from the vast majority of his colleagues upon other questions, 
like agrarian policy and protective duties, these views of Herr 
Calwer cannot be regarded as representative of working-class 
sentiment generally. It is, however, significant that just as in 
the United States the labour organisations systematically 
co-operate with the trusts in keeping up prices—even to the 
extent of share-holding—on the understanding that a portion of 
the extra profits shall be returned to the workers in higher 
wages, so the Christian (2.e., predominantly Roman Catholic) 
trade unions in Germany show a disposition to back up the 
syndicates on the same ground of self-interest. The report for 
1906 of the largest of these unions, that of the miners, stated: 
‘‘ The favourable and moderating influence of the Coal Syndicate 
was again felt during the year. In earlier times, before the 
Syndicate was formed, the prices of coal rapidly advanced in 
years of good trade, and fell just as quickly on a trade relapse. 
But the Syndicate since its establishment has followed a policy 
of stable prices, preventing a too great fall in times of crisis and 
a sudden excessive rise in the years of commercial expansion. 


196 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


The business world and almost the entire middle class, even in 
the industrial districts, have complained of the high prices of 
coal. It is too easily forgotten that nearly the entire population 
of the industrial districts has an interest in the adequate 
remuneration of the workers, and this is only possible permanently 
if industry works at a corresponding profit.” So, too, the 
leading spokesman of the Christian organisation, Herr Giesbert, 
said in the Reichstag recently: ‘‘If the Syndicate gets good 
prices for its coal and thus creates the possibility of paying good 
wages to its workpeople, the interests of the workpeople coincide 
with those of the Syndicate.’’ Even the organ of the powerful 
Socialist Metal Workers’ Union, the most influential in Germany, 
has welcomed the syndicates as representing ‘‘a higher form of 
industrial organisation.”’ 

Nevertheless, the working classes as a whole more or less 
vaguely fear the power of the cartells. If the cartells can 
increase prices by eliminating competition between producers 
(so they argue), why should they not seek to reduce wages by 
eliminating competition between employers? The argument is 
theoretically sound, except that it does not make sufficient 
allowance for other factors which go to fixing the price of 
labour, nor does it take at its full value the weapon of counter- 
combination which is within the power of labour. In effect the 
fear of lower wages is not yet justified by the past history of the 
cartells. 

More reasonable and more justified is the suspicion of the 
working classes which is based on the hostile attitude of some 
of the best known syndicate leaders towards trade unionism. 
At the Congress of the Association for Social Policy in 1905 
Herr Kirdorf, the director of the Westphalian Coal and Iron 
Syndicates, said: ‘‘It is to be regretted that our workpeople 
can at any time change their positions, for an undertaking can 
only thrive if it has at command a stationary body of work- 
men. I do not ask legislation to come to our aid, but we must 
reserve to ourselves the right to take steps to prevent the frequent 
change of work. It has been proposed that all workpeople 
should be compelled to form organisations and the employers 
be compelled to negotiate with these organisations. » Let me 
remark for myself that I decline to negotiate with a labour 
organisation of any kind whatsoever.’’ Words like these, 


THE SYNDICATES 197 


coming from one of the greatest autocrats in the German 
industrial world, have naturally given rise to the apprehension 
that the large cartells would not be indisposed to challenge 
the working-man’s most fundamental rights, viz., his right to 
combine and his right to sell his labour where, how, and to 
whom he will, should a favourable opportunity arise. Professor 
Adolph Wagner said at the meeting of the Evangelical Social 
Congress in May, 1907, that in spite of the improvement in the 
condition of the working classes, their ‘‘ dependence upon the 
enormous capital concentrations was to-day greater than ever.” 
It is the uncertainty as to where this dependence may in the 
end lead that creates most suspicion and distrust of the syndicates 
in the minds of the workers. 

It remains only to refer to the public attitude towards the 
cartells, and to the legislative and other measures which have 
been proposed for the checking of such excesses as have come 
to light. 

When the cartell movement began there were not a few writers in 
the circle of economic liberalism who welcomed these organisations 
as a legitimate means of regulating production, of equalising 
prices, and of organising industry on more efficient lines. The 
State Socialistic critics of ‘‘ unlimited competition,” with its 
correlative, price undercutting, at the expense of quality on the 
one hand and of wages on the other, saw their wisdom justified 
when a blow seemed to be thus struck at their special aversion. 
There was all the greater readiness to receive the syndicates with 
confidence since they were held to be a certain means of equipping 
the German iron industry in particular for further conquests in 
the world-markets. The home trade, it was said, would by their 
operation be more completely preserved for home labour, the 
export trade would expand, small and large undertakings would 
have an equal chance, the working classes would have higher 
and more stable wages, and all this would be done at no one’s 
expense, for cheaper production and distribution would permit of 
the syndicated goods being sold at the same average prices as 
before. 

Some of these predictions and expectations have been partially 
realised, but not all. The syndicated industries have made 
giant strides; assisted by the higher protective duties which 
have been imposed in the meantime, the home market has been 


198 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


kept to a larger extent than before as a national preserve ; the 
export trade has also increased, and the wages of labour have 
risen. Yet all industries have not benefited equally; the 
smaller undertakings in the industries syndicated have as a 
rule suffered ; where the syndicated works have gained by the 
larger export trade the unsyndicated works have often lost ; 
and finally the increased gains of industry and (nominally) 
of labour have unquestionably been at the expense of the 
general consumer, who has been effectually squeezed by manu- 
facturer, labourer, and trader equally. 

It is instructive to read in early literature on the syndicate 
movement of the high expectations which were entertained by 
some of the liberal economists. Professor Lujo Brentano, 
regarding the syndicates as an eventual substitute for Protection, 
saw in them a means of rejuvenating the existing industrial 
system ; blind, unregulated production, leading to ruinous over- 
production, was to cease, and all the evils that follow in its 
train were to be abated. ‘‘ While theorists of different schools,’’ 
he wrote in 1890, ‘‘ have exhausted themselves over unprofitable 
projects, the needs of practical men have called into existence a 
new organisation, whose purpose it is to remove the glut of the 
market—viz., the cartells. A market will be secured to home 
industry sufficient to provide ample and regular employment to 
labour at remunerative prices.” So, too, Professor Kleinwachter 
regarded the cartells as the salvation of the working classes, and 
called upon the State to ‘‘ require the syndicated industries to 
assure to their employees life occupation, with wages regularly 
increasing with the years of service, as well as old age, widows’ 
and orphans’ pensions,’ thus creating universal industrial 
content and cutting from under the Socialist party the basis of 
its agitation. In those days the syndicates had at best critics 
and not opponents, and on the whole the criticism was too little 
discriminating to be helpful. 

Since then a change has come over the spirit of the professors’ 
dream ; many illusions have been dispelled, and few of the first 
hopes have been altogether realised. This change found for the 
first time vigorous expression at the Mannheim congress of 
the Association for Social Politics in September, 1905, which 
Herr Kirdorf, director of the Westphalian Steel and Coal 
Syndicates, had been invited to attend in order to hear the 


THE SYNDICATES 199 


opinion of the theorists regarding his doings and to reply for 
himself. 

Professor Gustav Schmoller led the attack in a speech which 
showed that he had entirely forsaken his early attitude of 
benevolent neutrality. ‘ 

“* Only a short time ago,” he said, ‘‘ the speeches of Ministers 
flowed over with praises of the cartells. Since then these 
Ministers have changed their views, although matters have not 
gone so far with us as in America. The gentlemen of the cartells 
say, ‘Do leave us alone and do not disturb our circle.’ We 
should be glad enough to do that if only the cartells and syndi- 
cates would leave ws alone. The syndicates have, however, 
enormously increased the price of coal, and colliery shares have 
as a result increased from 40 or 50 to 300 and 400 per cent. 
Formerly legislation placed in the foreground the principle, ‘ All 
economic development depends on free competition,’ and now 
suddenly the contrary holds good, for the cartells destroy all 
competition and set up monopolies in its place. The formation 
of cartells leads logically to the repeal of industrial freedom. 
Formally this freedom can and will continue to exist, but it has 
in practice lost significance, and if matters continue as now it 
will lose it more and more. This fundamental transformation 
undoubtedly explains the fact that the cry for nationalisation 
was never so loud as now. The nationalisation of the collieries 
has become especially popular. Iam no friend of nationalisation, 
but I have no doubt that if we had a Minister of the strength 
and decision of Prince Bismarck the collieries in the Ruhr 
district at least would have been nationalised. In any event it 
is necessary that the State should acquire an influence on the 
syndicates. A mere veto on an increase of prices, however, is 
not enough; the State must use its influence to secure a reduc- 
tion of prices. It is desirable that there should be an agreement 
between buyers and sellers, perhaps negotiated by an Imperial 
Board. In this way a movement of prices suited to varying 
conditions might be secured. In a country in which the private 
railways have passed into the State’s hands and in which fiscal 
mining has been begun on a large scale, there is certainly 
nothing extraordinary in setting limits to the formation of 
trusts.” 

Professor Schmoller proceeded to advocate the giving to the 


200 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


State of a voice on the directorates of the larger syndicates by 
the nomination of one-fourth of their members, with a view to 
preventing abuses by which the interests of the public might 
suffer, and he also suggested that one-half of their profits beyond 
a certain amount (a 10 per cent. dividend was mentioned) should 
go to the State, proposals which led Herr Kirdorf to say om 
behalf of the Coal Syndicate that he would prefer out-and-out 
nationalisation. 

It seems clear, however, that the cartells so far have kept 
strictly within the law. When a case against them was stated 
before the Imperial Supreme Court, which was asked to declare 
these organisations to be contrary to the principle of free competi- 
tion, the Court turned the tables on the prosecution by stating 
that measures for preventing free competition might under certain 
circumstances be in the interests of the community. Nor has 
success attended similar attempts by legal process to prove close 
unions of employers opposed to the principle of ‘‘ freedom of 
occupation’ affirmed by the Industrial Code. For the law only 
assures to every citizen the right to follow the calling of his 
choice; it does not undertake to protect him against difficulties 
caused by the presence of other competitors in the same field or 
guarantee him the least measure of success. Nevertheless, the 
feeling prevails very widely that the cartells have gone as far in 
the concentration of economic power and its employment for 
private advantage as is just to the interests of society as a whole, 
and that the time is quickly coming for restrictive measures. 
This many of the syndicates recognise. It was doubtless a desire 
to conciliate public opinion which led the directorate of the Coal 
Syndicate to invite the Prussian Government some time ago to 
join that body and so exercise a voice in its proceedings, an offer 
which, wisely or not, was declined as ‘* untimely.” 

At present no legislative powers exist which would enable 
either the Imperial or the State Governments to interfere with 
the action of the syndicates, and such measures as they have 
taken have been of an indirect kind. In Prussia the State, 
though a large colliery proprietor, has but slight influence on the. 
coal industry in general. It controls some 25 per cent. of the 
coal output in Upper Silesia, and dominates the Saarbriicken: 
coal-fields, but the Westphalian district is the real heart of the: 
coal industry and the scene of the struggle between private: 


THE SYNDICATES 201 


monopoly and the public, and in spite of the Hibernia colliery 
share purchases in 1904 the State is there helpless. The 
determining motive in the Hibernia transaction, to which 
the natural desire of the Government to secure constant and 
economical supplies of fuel for the State railways and other 
undertakings was admitted to be quite secondary, was to exercise 
an effective check upon excessive prices in the interest of the 
great industries whose prosperity depends on cheap coal supplies. 
The Government obtained possession of a considerable share in 
the property before it became known that the agents who were 
known to be buying up the market were acting on its behalf, but 
the avowal of the project stirred up opposition among the 
Hibernia Company’s shareholders, and in spite of persistent 
efforts and appeals to law the State was beaten back. 

As to the possibility of direct intervention the Prussian 
Minister of Commerce, Dr. Delbriick, said in the Diet on 
November 26, 1907: “‘ The question has been asked whether we 
can oppose obstacles to the (Coal) Syndicate’s arbitrary action in 
fixing prices. I pass over the question to what extent the 
Syndicate has transgressed reasonable limits in fixing prices. 
The test whether the Syndicate fixes its prices according to 
economically right principles can only be applied when we know 
how it will act in the event of a further decline in industry.* 
For the present we are certainly not in a position to exert 
influence on the Syndicate in the matter of price fixing, and 
such an influence will only be possible on the strength of general 
syndicate legislation, as to which the necessary investigations are 
not yet complete.” 

The only legislative measure which has yet been aimed at the 
Coal Syndicate in Prussia was of an indirect character, and it was 
adopted in the special interest of the miners, viz., the Mining 
Law of 1905. In defending that law, which was intended to 
ameliorate the conditions of work, to reduce the hours of labour, 
to abolish abuses in fines and penalties, and establish workmen’s 
committees, the Prussian Minister of Commerce of that day 
(Herr Moller) said in the Upper House of the Diet on June 28, 
1905 :— 

** The present reform of the mining legislation is a consequence 


* Although an industrial relapse occurred towards the end of 1907 the Coal 
Syndicate raised its prices for the succeeding year. 


202 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


of capital concentration in the coal mining industry. I have 
repeatedly acknowledged the necessity of such concentration and 
have opposed anti-cartell laws. But the Government must show 
the cartells that it cannot in the public interest allow them to 
transgress certain limits, and such a transgression of permissible 
limits has occurred on the part of the Coal Syndicate. The 
members of the Syndicate have taken up a too masterful stand- 
point, or they would long ago have satisfied the justifiable 
demands of the workpeople. As that was not done it was 
necessary for legislation to intervene.”’ 

Although, as has already been explained, the Government in 
its reprisals did not go to the full lengths originally intended, 
which included a State veto on the closure of mines, the law as 
passed materially improved the position of all underground 
workers. 

The Imperial Government has so far adopted a waiting and 
watching attitude, merely appointing a Commission to inquire 
into the past working of the more important cartells in the 
principal industries. This inquiry has already continued for 
several years and a vast amount of more or less disjointed 
evidence has been accumulated, not all to the advantage of the 
eartells, though they have made out the best possible case for 
themselves. The Government has, however, made it clear that 
should legislation be necessary to check cartell excesses it 
will without hesitation be proposed, and in the present temper of 
the Imperial Diet there can be no doubt that any measures in 
this sense submitted to it would be passed not only promptly, but 
in a more drastic form than might be acceptable to the Executive ; 
for though the many parties in the Reichstag differ upon most 
questions they are absolutely united in acknowledging that some 
of the cartells both possess excessive power and have made 
excessive use of it. It is in the ranks of the National Liberal 
party alone that the syndicates specially look for sympathy and 
support, yet during one of many recent debates on this question 
in the Reichstag a National Liberal deputy stated, ‘‘ The head of 
the Coal Syndicate possesses to-day far greater political power 
than the Minister of Commerce. We foresaw that, and that was 
why we proposed in 1900 that there should be Imperial control of 
the syndicates and cartells. We are no opponents of the cartells 
in principle, but we call for the regulation of their powers some- 


THE SYNDICATES 203 


what on the lines of the resolution of the Jurists’ Conference 
(Juristentag) of 1904.”’ The resolution here referred to affirmed 
the opinion that ‘‘State intervention is indispensable for the 
purpose of checking excessive increases of price and of conferring 
upon the working classes an equal right of coalition and an equal 
legal status to those enjoyed by the organisations of employers.”’ 
_ The counter measures most commonly advocated may now be 
briefly summarised. It will not have escaped attention that 
most of the criticism directed against the syndicates really 
relates only to the policy pursued by one of their number, the 
Westphalian Coal Syndicate, which affects the public as con- 
sumers most immediately, and the remedial measures proposed 
nearly all proceed from this standpoint. 

(1) The first demand is that the fullest light of publicity shall 
be thrown upon the operations of the syndicates, for it is held 
that only on that presupposition will public opinion be brought to 
bear upon them effectively and the State be able to adopt 
timely action should the syndicates abuse their power when 
circumstances are favourable. It is accordingly proposed that 
the syndicates shall henceforth be required to work in the full 
light of day; that all their statutes, reeulations, and conventions, 
and all resolutions modifying them, shall be published, together 
with yearly accounts of revenue and expenditure, prepared in 
greater detail than is the case with ordinary public companies. 
The statutes of all syndicates are first to be submitted to the 
Imperial Government for approval. It is significant that in a 
recent issue of the Deutsche Wirthschaftszeitung, Dr. H. Voelker, 
who was formerly a member of the directorate of the Steelworks 
Union, and who can therefore judge of the syndicates from within, 
urged that these combinations should be brought under the 
systematic control of the State, yet with a distinct voice in their 
own regulations. It is not very encouraging to find Dr. Voelker 
adding the admonition that the present Cartell Commission 
should be made permanent, since only by that means will the 
Government be able to cultivate the close touch with the 
syndicates and their conductors which he regards as desirable in 
the public interest. 

(2) All the critics of the syndicates agree in the demand that 
where these bodies are known to be manipulating the market or 
improperly exploiting a condition of scarcity, the Government 


204 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


should suspend the import duties and also the preferential 
railway tariffs, in the case of the incriminated industry ; further, 
that in the event of public convenience seriously suffering, as by 
a dearth of coal, it should encourage imports by reducing the 
railway charges. The suspension of import duties under such 
circumstances is, of course, a part of the Canadian protective 
legislation of 1897, and it has been enforced in the Dominion 
more than once. In Germany, where the Federal Council 
reserves to itself great powers in regard to the execution of the 
customs tariff, there would be no administrative difficulty: the 
only serious objection is that syndicated and unsyndicated works 
would be hit indiscriminately by such a retaliatory measure. 

As regards the offer or withdrawal of preferential railway 
tariffs, a matter which falls within the exclusive province of the 
individual States—the Empire only having railways under its 
control in Alsace-Lorraine—the various Governments do already 
possess full power to differentiate both on exported and imported 
goods. This power is constantly exercised in relation to heavy 
exports, but more rarely in relation to imports, though in 
1900 the Prussian Government in a time of scarcity tempo- 
rarily facilitated the entrance of coal by reducing the charges 
upon its railways. 

(3) As regards private action, defensive organisations of dealers 
and consumers on the one hand and of working people on the other 
are advised. It is obvious, however, that organisations amongst 
dealers would offer no protection to consumers, while efficient 
combinations of consumers are almost inconceivable. Moreover, 
it is a fair argument that if the community is only able to 
protect itself against injurious combinations of private interests 
by counter-combination, the time has clearly come for it to act 
as one body, z.e., for the State to interfere and apply the wltuma 
ratio of legislative restriction. 

The case of the working classes would seem to call for special 
consideration. They are most immediately affected by the 
syndicates, and while so far there is no proof that they have 
suffered, still, in the face of capital combinations of unequalled 
magnitude, they must always keep en vedette. Vague yet 
ominous threats, like that uttered by Herr Kirdorf at the 
Evangelical Congress at Mannheim, already referred to, must 
inevitably produce in labour circles a feeling of uneasiness. As 


THE SYNDICATES 205 


the success of the cartells depends upon the closest and strongest 
possible union of the entrepreneurs concerned, it is contended 
that the workpeople in their employ may fairly claim in its 
fullest form the right to combine and also to resort to all action 
which logically proceeds from that right, and may under circum- 
stances be needful in order to make it effective. It is significant 
that Herr Richard Calwer, the Socialist well-wisher of the 
syndicates, allows that combinations of dealers and consumers 
and working-class coalitions will, in all probability, be insufficient 
to hold the syndicates in check, and that he, too, looks to State 
action. 

(4) The enormous power of the syndicates in the coal and 
coke trade has unquestionably weakened the objections to the 
nationalisation of the collieries, not because the syndicates are 
regarded as a natural step towards collective ownership, but 
because they have stifled competition, handicapped dependent 
industries, and placed the mass of consumers at the mercy of a 
few great companies. The action of the Westphalian Coal 
Syndicate, in particular, has greatly stimulated public opinion in 
Prussia in favour of a general scheme of nationalisation, and 
in the event of another conflict between national and syndicate 
interests such as occurred during the later period of the recent 
industrial boom, it is not unlikely that this movement would 
carry the Government with it. The nationalisation of the coal 
mines is advocated by leading economists like Wagner and 
Schmoller, and all parties save one in the Diet would favour 
the immediate adoption of such a measure. The colliery pro- 
prietors are not indifferent to the imminency of this danger, 
and when the Hibernia share purchase was made a union of 
nine Chambers of Commerce of Rhineland and Westphalia 
promptly petitioned the two Houses of the Prussian Diet to 
annul the contract on the ground that ‘‘ the projected acquisition 
of the Hibernia colliery would be followed by the nationalisation 
of other collieries, and the nationalisation of even a majority of 
the collieries must be resolutely opposed for political, economic, 
and social reasons.’’ In Prussia, however, where State enter- 
prise extends in so many directions, no objection on grounds of 
principle would be allowed to stand in the way; and while for the 
present there is no reason to believe that the Government 
desires to undertake new responsibilities of such magnitude, a 


206 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


large scheme of nationalisation must be regarded as at least 
falling within the range of practical policy. 

Many experts who object to the nationalisation of the 
collieries are not opposed to the application of this measure to 
the potash mines. In the early years of the Potash Syndicate’s 
career the Prussian State was represented by 27 per cent. of its 
entire production. The opening up of new mines and their 
inclusion in the Syndicate led to a reduction of this share to 7 
per cent. in 1906, and with that reduction the State’s influence 
disappeared proportionately, so that the tendency to force prices 
upwards to the prejudice of agriculture, the Syndicate’s largest 
customer, was fast getting beyond control. The purchase of the 
Hercynia mine, at a cost of one and a half million pounds, has 
brought the State’s share in the Syndicate’s production back to 
11 per cent. Answering the objection made in the Diet that 
the Government had paid too high a price for the mine, Minister 
von Delbruck said (April 3, 1906) :— 

‘‘The question has been asked repeatedly whether the State 
could not have attained its ends more economically by waiting 
for a more favourable time to purchase. Yes, a business man, 
who wished to make a big profit, might argue so, but the State 
is buying for reasons of the public welfare and the public interest. 
The object of this purchase is to make it strong enough to serve 
the public interest, even without the Syndicate if necessary.”’ 

It is not without significance that in 1907 the Prussian 
Government introduced in the Diet a Bill designed to give—or, 
rather, to restore—to the State the entire right to explore for 
coal, rock salt, potash, magnesia, &c. In former times mining 
was, in Prussia, a right of the Crown. A Mining Law was 
passed in 1865, however, with the object of attracting private 
capital to mining undertakings, and it succeeded only too well, 
since it has developed a large amount of unhealthy speculation. 
The new measure is intended to check the growth of monopolies 
and to prevent mining enterprise from falling into the hands of 
mere company promoters. It transfers to the State the sole right 
to open new mines in most parts of the kingdom—the provinces 
of Brandenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Kast Prussia, and Pome- 
rania were excluded from the Bill by the dominant party—thus 
making private enterprise dependent upon State assent, which will 
be granted subject to such conditions as the Department of 
Mines may from time to time impose. 


CHAPTER XI 


STATE ENTERPRISE—RAILWAYS AND CANALS 


German ideas as to the sphere of public and private enterprise—The extent of 
State initiative—The revenues from State undertakings—The State as 
owner of lands and forests—State insurance for agriculture in Bavaria— 
The State railway system—Prince Bismarck’s ideal of Imperial railways 
frustrated—The railway revenues and taxation—The profits of the 
Prussian railways—The extent of the national water-ways and canals— 
Recent canal schemes—The projected river navigation duties—Constitu- 
tional aspects of the question. 


T has been of untold advantage to Germany that when, more 
than thirty years ago, it seriously began to develop its 
economic resources, its progress was not hampered by any hard- 
and-fast adhesion to a definite line of policy in regard to the 
limits of public as compared with private enterprise. Germany 
is supposed to be a nation of theorists, England a nation of 
practical men, yet the doctrinarianism which made a fetish vf 
individualism originated in the land of practical men; the lund 
of theorists accepted both individualism and socialisation just 
for what they were intrinsically worth, without prejudice for or 
against, and made an idol of neither. If Germany has, on the 
whole, gone as far in the direction of encouraging public enter- 
prise as England went, up to a generation ago, in crippling it, 
the explanation may be found in the fact which has already been 
incidentally referred to, that State initiative, originating in the 
time of patriarchalism and absolutist rule, is the tradition of 
German government; hence it was easy and natural for the 
Germans to apply the principle of public enterprise and effort to 
modern conditions. 


The adoption of this principle has assisted the nation in a 
207 


208 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


pre-eminent degree to make the most of its opportunities. For 
by taking upon themselves a large share of economic functions 
the State and the municipal authorities to that extent released a 
vast amount of private effort and capital; while they were look- 
ing after the matters of common interest, the individual citizens 
were left free to concentrate attention in directions which offered 
a more natural scope for personal enterprise. It is a striking 
fact that at the present time over 31,000 miles of railways 
(either railways belonging to the State or private lines managed 
by the State, though mostly the former), representing over six 
hundred million pounds of invested capital, are working with 
perfect smoothness and success without the aid of boards of 
directors, private capitalists, and meetings of shareholders, who 
as a consequence are able to employ their activities in other 
and more advantageous ways. 

Not only so, but a large part of the revenues of the various 
States is derived from their remunerative enterprises, a fact 
which has an important bearing upon taxation, and which 
explains the comparative lightness of the direct taxes per head 
of the population in some of the States. The gross receipts of 
the remunerative undertakings of the Empire, according to the 
Budget for 1905, formed 31°3 per cent. of its aggregate revenue, 
while those of the federal States formed 68 per cent. The 
amount of these gross receipts for Empire and States together 
was £145,750,000. Among the undertakings from which the 
Empire derives revenue are,'besides the post and telegraphs, the 
railways in Alsace-Lorraine, the Imperial Printing Works, and 
the Imperial Bank (in which the Empire holds shares), while the 
principal undertakings carried on for profit by the States are the 
railways, the post and telegraphs (in Bavaria and Wurtemberg, 
which retain their ‘ particularist’’ rights in regard to these 
services), forests and domains, coal, iron, potash, and other 
mines, and iron smelting works, though revenue is derived in 
some States from tobacco and porcelain manufactories, banks, 
lotteries, medicinal baths and springs, amber works, breweries, 
and newspapers. Of industrial undertakings alone the Prussian 
State carried on, in 1906, 39 mines, 12 smelting works, five salt 
works, three stone quarries, and one amber works. Indeed, 
the State is the largest mine and mineral proprietor in the 
kingdom. 


STATE ENTERPRISE—RAILWAYS AND CANALS 209 


Of old the fiscal lands were the main source of public revenue 
in all States, and they so continue in the small States to-day. 
In the larger States railways have taken the place of public 
lands as a source of revenue, though it is only in Prussia that 
the profits from the railways meet any large proportion of the 
national expenditure. In 1905 the net proceeds of the Empire’s 
various profit-yielding undertakings were about six million 
pounds, but those of the federal States amounted to forty-two 
and a half millions. No less than thirty-three and a quarter 
millions were derived from the railways, seven millions from forests 
and domains, and over a million from mines. Prussia alone 
had a total nett revenue from remunerative undertakings of 
£30,170,000, of which £25,200,000 came from railways, 
£2,770,000 from forests and lands, and £935,000 from mines ; 
Bavaria had a revenue from this source of £4,100,000, of which 
£2,560,000 came from railways, and £1,190,000 from forests 
and lands; Saxony, with nett profits from public undertakings of 
£4,370,000, derived £1,695,000 from railways and £425,000 
from forests and lands; Wurtemberg, with a total of £1,790,000, 
derived £860,000 from railways, and £595,000 from forests and 
lands; Baden, with a total of £940,000, derived £730,000 from 
railways; and Hesse, with a total of £840,000, derived £670,000 
from railways. 

This policy of State enterprise is likely to be developed still 
further in the future. The possibility of the nationalisation of 
the collieries in Prussia on a large scale has been referred to, but 
meantime the Government of that State is energetically extend- 
ing the mines it already owns. Early in 1908 it obtained from 
the Diet a vote of nearly three million pounds for the purpose 
of sinking new shafts. The Saxon Government also pro- 
poses to add to its undertakings large cast steel works for 
the production of the rails and other materials needed on the 
State lines. 

The confidence in State enterprise which is felt in Prussia 
received singular confirmation during the consideration of the 
Rhine-Weser canal project by the Diet in 1907. The Govern- 
ment asked for a grant of £800,000, wherewith to purchase land 
on both sides of the new waterway, so that the community might 
benefit by the increased value which this land would acquire. 


The Diet promptly voted an extra million pounds. 
15 


210 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


State enterprise is being shown at the present time on a still 
more ambitious scale in Bavaria in projects for developing water 
power for the electrification of the railways and for industrial 
purposes generally. The Government of that State already has 
the right to use the rivers and streams of the country in this 
way, and a large and costly scheme for the generation and distri- 
bution of electric power is ready for execution. The Saxon 
Government recently endeavoured to obtain a law which would 
have asserted a similar fiscal right to the rivers and streams, and 
have placed them for all future time under the direct control of 
the State. It is estimated that from the larger rivers of Saxony 
alone a force of at least 373,000 horse-power can be obtained, 
though as yet barely 1 per cent. of this potential energy has 
been bridled for the use of industry. The Government’s proposal 
has not for the present been well received. The cry of ‘‘ Water 
Socialism ”’ created great prejudice against it, and the Diet 
insisted on restricting the Bill to one for the mere control of 
the streams. 

Reference has been made to the revenue derived by most of 
the States from forests and other lands. It is immensely to the 
advantage of national life that owing to the great extent of its 
landed possessions the State has an important direct stake in agri- 
culture, and incidentally can in some degree preserve the balance 
between the large and small proprietors. It used to be a favourite 
theory of Prince Bismarck’s that the salary of a Prussian 
Minister of State should be paid only partly in money and for 
the rest he should be allotted an estate which he should be 
required to manage on his own account. In that way, he 
argued, the Government would be in continual and close contact 
with the first of national industries, and would be in a position 
to frame its agricultural policies and measures on the basis of 
immediate experience. The same end is achieved by the fact 
that a large part of the area of each State is in fiscal hands, 
and this area tends to increase. The area of fiscal land 
(forests excluded) in Prussia increased from 869,157 acres in 
1903 to 997,660 acres in 1906, chiefly owing to an increase of 
127,260 acres in the Eastern Provinces (from 740,865 to 
868,125 acres). The largest domains are in the provinces of 
Pomerania, 161,577 acres; East Prussia, 149,785 acres; 
Brandenburg, 134,950 acres; West Prussia, 180,185 acres; 


STATE ENTERPRISE—RAILWAYS AND CANALS 211 


and Saxony, 123,257 acres. In the Western Provinces the 
State owns only 129,585 acres. The State farms, which are as 
a rule let on eighteen years’ leases, serve as a useful barometer 
by which the Government can test the condition of agriculture 
at any given time, without relying on the conflicting opinions of 
parties. When, for example, in the middle of the ‘nineties 
the rents of all fiscal farms fell to the extent of 25 and 30 per 
cent., the Government had no need of a commission of inquiry to 
convince it that something was radically wrong with agriculture. 
The Department of Agriculture devotes great attention to 
experimental farming, to the great benefit of the smaller culti- 
vators, and as a high standard of cultivation is expected of its 
tenants the fiscal holdings generally serve as object lessons in 
progressive agriculture to the surrounding farmers. At the same 
time the public domains are a source of considerable revenue. 
The income derived from all the fiscal lands, exclusive of 
forests, in 1906 was £737,586. For the State does not conduct 
its estate on philanthropic principles; no better bargainers 
exist than the controllers of its manors, farms, and forests. As 
land is sold in the neighbourhood of towns it is bought in the 
open country, with the result that the foundations of great future 
wealth are industriously being laid. Thus in 1904, 10,600 acres 
of land were sold, but 75,800 acres were bought. 

The Prussian State also owned forests to the extent of 
7,263,490 acres in 1904, and this estate it is steadily increasing. 
In that year it purchased 42,600 acres of forest but sold only 
1,070 acres. The greater part of the State’s forest lands are situ- 
ated in the Eastern Provinces, viz., 5,300,000 acres, of which 
1,245,600 acres are in East Prussia alone, 1,080,700 acres in 
Brandenburg, and 966,700 acres in West Prussia. The whole of 
these forests are managed by the State on its own account by a 
skilled service of foresters, trained in special schools of forestry, 
and from the revenues half the cost of the King’s Civil List is 
defrayed. 

This is not the only form of State agricultural enterprise 
common in Germany. The Bavarian Government insures 
farmers against fire, hail, and loss of farm stock. Nearly a 
hundred years ago King Max I. of that country laid down the 
principle of national insurance, and such have been its develop- 
ments that to-day the State insures property to the value of 


212 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


nearly four hundred million pounds against fire; it insures 
142,000 farmers against loss by hailstorms to the extent of 
eleven and a half million pounds; and over 2,000 farmers’ 
societies are affiliated to its horse, cattle, and goat insurance 
funds. 

It is in the domain of railway ownership and administration, 
however, that the State has achieved its greatest success. 
There may be difference of opinion as to whether on the whole 
the German State railways are better in themselves and are 
better managed than good English railways in private owner- 
ship, yet any comparison between two countries with different 
systems, or even with the same system, would obviously be 
futile. Probably most of the incidents of German railway 
administration» and usage which unfavourably impress people 
unaccustomed to the methodical and calculated movements of 
German officialism are not inherent at all in the State railway 
system, but have their explanation in German characteristics, 
and they would hardly by any possibility be translated to this 
country were the principle of nationalisation introduced here. 
The only practicable comparison must be confined to Germany 
itself, and there is there absolute agreement that the immense 
improvement which has taken place since the railways were 
nationalised is attributable more to the efficient and uniform 
management exercised by State officials than to any other 
cause. 

In this as in most innovations involving the strengthening of 
the State’s influence, Prussia led the way, though in doing so it 
departed from the principle laid down when the first railways 
were built. The Prussian Railway Law of 1838 followed English 
precedent in leaving the construction of railways to private 
enterprise, though it reserved to the State wide powers of 
control, and stipulated for the right to purchase a line after 
thirty years’ working on condition of taking over its debt and 
paying the shareholders twenty-five years’ purchase, calculated 
on the average dividend of the preceding five years, »Never- 
theless, the State soon began both to buy and to build railways 
on its own account; other lines it subsidised, so acquiring a joint 
interest in them; while annexation brought it the railways of 
Hanover and Nassau and the Frankfort portion of the Main- 
Neckar line. The same policy of nationalisation was followed in 


STATE ENTERPRISE—RAILWAYS AND CANALS 218 


the other important States, Bavaria, Saxony, Wurtemberg, and 
Baden, and for the past thirty years the principle of nationali- 
sation has been so entirely taken for granted that the question 
whether State or private management is better has not even an 
academic interest in Germany. 

Prince Bismarck’s ideal was, of course, nationalisation in the 
widest political sense. Just as before 1871—indeed, as early as 
1847, when he was still a private deputy in the incipient Diet of 
Prussia—Bismarck’s motto was ‘‘ The railways for the State,”’ 
so after that year of Imperial consolidation his motto was ‘‘ The 
railways for the Empire.’’ Hence in the constitution of 1871 
he asserted for the Empire wide powers of control, secured the 
possibility, at least, of uniform management, and paved the way 
for the appropriation by the Imperial Government of the entire 
railway system. In 1875, holding that it was Prussia’s duty to 
show the way, he went so far as to ask the Prussian Diet to pass 
a Bill for ‘“‘ the transference of the State’s property and other 
rights in railways to the German Empire ”’; and although the 
Radical individualists bitterly contested the proposal he carried 
it by a large majority, meeting the argument that while nationa- 
lisation was good imperialisation was dangerous with the dry 
rejoinder that he was quite sure that German liberty and unity 
would ‘ not travel away with the first Imperial locomotive.”’ 

The ‘first Imperial locomotive’’ in Bismarck’s sense (the 
Alsace-Lorraine railways belong to the Empire, but Prussia 
manages them) has not yet made its appearance, however, for 
while Prussia was ready to merge its railways in the common 
stock the other States, jealous of the northern kingdom, held 
back, and for many years to come particularism will continue to 
hold the field; though in this domain at any rate it has fairly 
proved its right to exist. Nevertheless, the principle of common 
action has been applied in many details of administration— 
tariffs, regulations, time-tables, &c.—and much has been done 
to facilitate interchange of traffic between adjoining States, 
so as to reduce the disadvantages of plural government to 
the utmost. 

At the end of the fiscal year 1905 there were in the whole 
‘Empire 84,175 miles of railway, 31,611 miles being State 
railways or private railways carried on by the State, and 2,564 
miles being private railways, though of the latter 1,982 miles 


214 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


were secondary lines. There were 262 miles per 100 square 
miles, and 56°7 miles to every 100,000 inhabitants: Prussia 
had ratios of 227 and 55°7 miles respectively, Bavaria 375°4 
and 71°4, Saxony 650 and 35°4, Wurtemberg 343°7 and 49, 
and Baden 500 and 58. The amount of capital invested in all 
the lines at the end of the year 1905 was £727,600,000, equal 
to about £21,300 per mile. In round figures the revenue in that 
year was £121,850,000, and the expenditure £77,050,000, giving 
a surplus of £44,800,000, equal to £6 5s. per cent. on the 
capital, the highest return recorded. The railways employed an 
army of 603,755 servants of all ranks. 

The only serious disadvantage of State railways is one which 
applies to all State undertakings of the nature of monopolies, 
viz., the danger of unduly emphasising the revenue standpoint. 
This is an aspect of the question which has come to the front in 
Prussia especially of late years, for there the railways are one of 
the main sources of fiscal revenue, and the Government is slow 
to cripple so useful a profit-yielding enterprise by incurring 
expenditure or making concessions which would have the effect 
of seriously diminishing the available surpluses. The trading 
world is alive to the temptations which beset even the most con- 
scientious of railway administrators, though otherwise thoroughly 
satisfied with the railway system and its management. 

‘*The fact is,’ wrote the Essen Chamber of Commerce in 
1906, in explaining to its members the difficulty of obtaining 
a concession for industry which would have meant financial 
sacrifice on the part of the railway administration, ‘‘ that the 
prosperity of our entire State finances is largely dependent upon 
the prosperity of our railway finances, as is shown by the fact 
that more than 40 per cent. of the Budget expenditure falls to 
the railways. For a long time to come we shall have to 
reckon with the fact that the receipts from the railways will 
form the principal source of the Prussian State’s revenues. 
It cannot be denied, however, that the increasing dependence 
of our State finances on the finances of the railways is attended 
by grave disadvantages. When it is remembered that the 
sum which the railway administration has handed over to the 
State Treasury, after payment of all expenditure incurred on 
behalf of the railways, increased from about £2,150,000 in 
the year 1890-91 to over £10,000,000 in the year 1900, and 


STATE ENTERPRISE—RAILWAYS AND CANALS 215 


that in later years the sum contributed by the railways towards 
the expenditure of the State has steadily increased to £14,250,000 
in 1905, it is easy to understand why the further appropriation of 
railway revenues to the general purposes of the State should in 
the Diet be regarded on all hands as undesirable, and that the 
fear should be entertained that such a course would be injurious to 
the commercial interests of the country and check the prosperous 
development of our economic life. In truth, the dependence 
of the general State finances on the yield of the railways in- 
volves the great danger that in the arrangement of tariffs 
economic considerations may tend to be made subservient to 
financial, that necessary economic reforms may not be introduced 
out of regard for the State finances, and that the tariff system 
may become absolutely stationary.” 

This danger has been accentuated during the late years of 
revenue scarcity, and it has led to the railway estimates being 
scrutinised and railway policy criticised with a jealousy unknown 
before. The Diet in 1906 went so far as to lay down principles 
for the guidance of the Railway Department in the form of a 
resolution affirming its opinion that ‘‘ within the limits imposed 
by due regard for the financial position of the State and the 
conditions of competition, measures may be taken more systema- 
tically than heretofore for the reduction of goods tariffs, espe- 
cially for goods which, as means of production or products of 
home manufactures, are of great importance for the success 
of agriculture and industry.”’ This, however, is but a pious 
opinion, and it is unlikely that the Government will depart from 
its traditional policy, the effect of which is that nearly one-fifth 
of the State’s needs are supplied by the profits on railway 
traffic. During the twenty years 1887 to 1906 the clear 
surpluses which were handed over to the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer by the Railway Minister for national purposes 
amounted to no less a sum than £293,000,000, which is twice 
the amount of the capital debt of the railways in 1882. In 
other words, the nation has been saved this huge sum in 
taxation, and without it much of the most beneficial expen- 
diture of the State—as, for example, in the promotion of 
education and the general purpose of culture—might mo 
been impossible. 

The great increase in these profits which has taken place during 


; 


216 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


the past twenty-five years will be seen from the following 
table :-— 
Nett Profits of Prussian State Railways since 1882. 


Million Million 

Pounds. ; Pounds. 
1882 eco eee eee 2°12 1895 eco eco eco 12°95 
1883 y- eo30 Seat ob ae 1896 see oon es 1000 
1884 eee eee eee 2°27 1897 eee ees eee 16°50 
1885 ee eee weet) LED 1898 .. wan eos 17°56 
1886 tp, ene oe LOSS 1899" "003 coe ole! Uae ee 
1887 dee sub oo. 69°45 1900... v00 «. 19°81 
1888 tee ese ee. 6°65 is iaee ove ada oe 
1889 cae coe eas 4 OU 1902 © we was soe RT 
1890 te Pe: 2000 7T 19038 +s eva ose, 23°28 
1891 xy rate ose . & OO 1904 eee ooo eo. 24°63 
1892 nee ove ere OOS 19007 1.8 wes cos (QOL 
1893 ze hve ee. 8°14 1906... oom eee 28°26 


1894 eee eee eee 8°57 


These profits are reckoned after payment of interest on the 
railway debt and making ample deductions for renewals. They 
represented in 1906 20 per cent. of the debt, after allowing for 
all repayments. 

The remarkable extent to which Germany uses its natural 
waterways, and has constructed artificial ones, for trade purposes 
is a suggestive reminder that the railway is not the last word 
on the problem of internal communication. In 1903 Germany 
had rivers and canals and other inland waterways to a length of 
8,750 miles, of which 5,041 miles were main streams—the 
principal ones being the Rhine, Elbe, Oder, Weser, Danube, 
Ems, and Vistula; 885 miles were channelled rivers, 1,369 
miles were navigable canals, and 1,443 miles were canals and 
other connecting waterways between lakes, estuaries, &c. Of 
the total length 524 miles had a navigable depth at the mean 
water-level of over 16 feet 3 inches, 350 miles had a depth 
of between 18 fect and 16 feet 3 inches, 520 miles one between 
9 feet 9 inches and 18 feet, 855 miles one between 8 feet 
14 inches and 9 feet 9 inches, 1,788 miles one between 6 feet 
6 inches and 8 feet 14 inches, 2,573 miles one between 4 feet 
10} inches and 6 feet 6 inches, 1,834 miles one between 8 feet 
8 inches and 4 feet 104 inches, and 574 miles one of 3 feet 
3 inches or less. The various waterways were classified 
geographically as follows :— 


STATE ENTERPRISE—RAILWAYS AND CANALS 217 





Main Channelled| Navigable Reiepbie 
Streams. Rivers. Canals. between 
Lakes, &c. 


| | 


Kilometres.| Kilometres.| Kilometres.| Kilometres. 


Rhine Territory seat «ese| 1,080°S 455-1 418°6 109°2 
Oder We eee ia] 1,089°S 155°0 80-0 352°6 
Elbe i. OD uses at | sgT10°6 350-2 144°4 62°6 
Weser ,, aoe ve 819°7 106°1 2°0 45:0 
Danube _,, $a uy: 686'7 32:9 a 56°7 
Ems * ove wn 464:7 85°1 587° 50:0 
Vistula ,, eee eve 411°'1 32°3 65°2 104'8 
Memel _ ,, ese ae. 249°4 — 30°1 100°7 
Pregel  ,, aes ae 216°7 — 19:0 ~— 
7,232 | 1,216-7 | 1,846°8 881:6 
Masurian Waterways ... ees 3°6 — 14°6 172°8 


Various CANALS. 


Memel and Pregel aed ie -— _ 19:0 — 
Bromberg nas von i —- _ 26:5 — 
Mark eee nea in ep 517°4 134°4 423-1 311°9 
Elbe and Weser... oT dae — — 43°6 — 
Weser and Ems... ase nbs 33-0 — 14:0 143‘0 
Danube-Main ... we “nf — — 139°5 — 
Haute-Ems eae mae dai —_ — 44:2 — 
Coast STREAMS. 
Baltic Sea West of Oder & 32°2 — coe 300°8 
North of Elbe (including North 
and Baltic Sea Canal) ore 214:7 64:8 105°0 272°4 
Ems and Weser... oe wn 33:0 — 14:0 143°0 
Frisches Haff ... ee waa — _ —_— 104°3 
TorTats ... eee | 8,066°4 1,415°9 2,190°3 2,329'8 


The aggregate navigable length of these inland waterways is 
14,000 kilometres, or 8,750 miles. 

The vessels of all kinds with a tonnage of 10 tons and over 
engaged in internal navigation in 1902 numbered 24,839, of 
which 23,949 were certified to have an ageregate tonnage of 
4,877,509, comparing with 18,242 such vessels with a tonnage 
of 1,658,266 in 1882. The total trade of the 20 Prussian 
harbours on the Rhine alone amounted in 1906 to 23,441,000 
tons, Dusseldorf having a trade of 1,019,000 tons, Cologne- 
Deutz 1,095,000 tons, Duisburg 6,221,000 tons, Duisburg- 
Ruhrort 7,418,000 tons, and Duisburg-Hohfeld 1,141,000 tons. 

Early in the history of mercantile transport the States recog- 
nised that canals were an absolute necessity for Germany, for 


218 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


with one exception the large rivers all flow from south to north, 
and so are of little use for the trade passing from west to east; 
even the Danube, flowing due east from Ulm to Vienna, only 
serves a small portion of South Germany. Hence many of the 
canals are of old date, though they have as a rule been 
thoroughly adapted to modern needs. The principal ones 
connect with the rivers Rhine, Elbe, Ems, Oder, and Vistula, 
with their tributaries. 

Perhaps the best idea of the inland waterway facilities 
enjoyed by the German trader can be obtained by taking 
almost any important town as a starting-point and following 
the directions in which regular navigation is carried on. Thus 
the Rhine can be used for heavy traffic as far as Mannheim 
and for light craft as far as Strassburg, though the deepening of 
the river to Basle is only a question of time. In the neighbour- 
hood of Duisburg a canal runs west toward the Scheldt, the 
Dortmund-Rhine canal runs east and the Dortmund-Ems canal 
runs north to Emden with a branch to the Weser; while a 
Central German (Mittelland) canal is projected, which will 
flow east from the last-named canal, passing Minden, Hanover, 
Magdeburg, Potsdam, and then, leaving Berlin slightly to the 
north, will meet the Oder above Frankfort. Higher up the 
Rhine its tributary the Main has been made navigable as far as 
Frankfort, and is now being deepened as far as Aschaffenburg, 
whence canals are contemplated which at Bamberg and 
Nuremberg will join the Ludwig canal, running north from the 
Danube. Finally there runs from Strassburg in French territory 
the Rhine-Marne canal and further south Mulhausen has canal 
communication with the Rhone. In the same way the Elbe above 
Dresden is connected by canals with the Danube, while below 
Magdeburg waterways establish communication east with the 
towns on the Spree, Havel, and Oder. 

At the present time Prussia is showing special enterprise in 
developing its canal system. The Canal Law of 1905 authorised 
the construction of a canal from the Rhine to the Dortmund- 
Ems canal, another from the latter canal to the Weser, one from 
the Weser to Hanover, a deep canal from Berlin to Stettin, 
costing alone over two million pounds, as well as various small 
branch canals and expensive works of rectification on certain 
of the shallower streams, Tho entire expenditure on these 


STATH ENTERPRISE—RAILWAYS AND CANALS 219 


projects is estimated at over sixteen million pounds. When 
several canal links have been made in the South there will be 
uninterrupted water communication between the North and 
Baltic Seas and Vienna and the rest of the towns on the 
Danube. What the canal system means for the large German 
towns may be judged from the fact that since the construction 
of the Teltow canal towed boats can go from Ratibor, over a 
hundred miles south of Breslau, in Silesia, to Berlin, and thence 
either to Stettin or Hamburg. The river trade of Berlin is larger 
than that of any port either on the Rhine or the Elbe, foreign 
trade excluded. In 1904 24,300 boats, with a tonnage of nearly 
four millions, came up the Spree and landed their cargoes in 
Berlin, while 13,700 boats, with a tonnage of three millions, 
came down-stream. Boats over 200 feet long and 26 feet wide, 
with a draft of 8 feet and a tonnage of 600, can use the river. 

The inland navigation trade of Germany stands at the present 
time before a crisis in its history, for the freedom of the natural 
waterways has been challenged by the Prussian Government. 
Hitherto the rivers have all been free, and in some of the ports 
on the Rhine, like Mannheim and Ludwigshafen, even harbour 
dues have not been charged, though this is not the case at 
- Cologne, Dusseldorf, and Mayence. Prussia desires to levy 
duties on all the rivers of the Empire, and has made a proposal 
to this effect to the Federal States. The proposal does not 
appear to have been regularly initiated. It was, indeed, part 
of a bargain made by Prince Bulow with the agrarian party in 
the Prussian Diet when in 1905 it ceased its opposition to the 
Government’s canal schemes and accepted them on terms. 
Forced at last to agree to the construction of the canals, the 
agrarians extracted from the Government an undertaking that it 
would use its influence to secure the introduction of duties on the 
rivers ‘‘regulated in the interest of navigation,” and the pledge 
was duly embodied as section 19 of the Canal Act as passed. 
The section runs as follows :— 

** Duties (Abgaben) shall be levied on rivers regulated in the 
interest of navigation. The duties shall be of such amount that 
the proceeds shall cover a reasonable (angemessen) interest and 
repayment of the expenditure made by the State for the improve- 
ment or deepening of each of these rivers beyond the natural 
limit in the interest of navigation, The raising of these dues 


220 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


shall begin at the latest with the coming into use of the Rhine- 
Weser canal or a portion of the same.” 

It is remarkable that the Prussian Government should have 
committed itself to so far-going a decision as this, affecting the 
rights of other States, both German and non-German, without 
first feeling its way; yet the pledge having been given, the 
agrarians were not disposed to tolerate its infraction, and the 
Prussian Government is now doing its best, both in the Federal 
Council and in negotiations with individual States, to carry out 
its obligations. 

Prussia’s proposal is that the German riparian States—the 
chief of which, besides itself, are Baden, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, 
Hesse, Anhalt, Oldenburg, and Hamburg—shall ‘‘ form a finan- 
cial association which shall levy duties for the deepening and 
improvement of the waterways.” The standpoint is overlooked 
that the rivers have been regulated so that the benefits of trade 
and industry may be more easily and more generally shared, and 
Shat in the growing use of the rivers for mercantile traffic lies the 
reward of the expenditure which has been incurred. 

It may also be fairly assumed that Prussia would like to see 
freedom of navigation curtailed on the rivers in the interest of 
its railways, with which the rivers now seriously compete, but a 
still more urgent reason for the change proposed is undoubtedly 
the desire to make more difficult the conveyance of foreign corn 
to inland Germany by waterway. This purpose was avowed 
by the agrarians during the discussion of the Canal Bills. Not 
only did the Canal Committee in its report explicitly state that 
‘the large streams are prejudicial to home agriculture, since 
they serve as entrance doors for foreign products, with the result 
that our protective policy is checkmated,’’ but when challenged to 
state why he wished for these duties the leader of the agrarians 
in the Prussian Upper House said, ‘‘I declare quite openly that 
I hope that the import of corn will be checked by the duties, and 
that by the differentiation of tariffs a means will be found of 
making it possible for us [the East Prussian] corn-growers to 
compete on the Rhine.” Nevertheless, it is at least possible 
that agriculture would be the first to lose by the imposition of 
river duties. For no river shipping company will carry on its 
trade at a loss, and the first result of duties would be an in- 
crease of freights. But it is not inconceivable that home agricul- 


STATE ENTERPRISE—RAILWAYS AND CANALS 221 


tural produce would prove less able to bear higher freights than 
foreign, and the advantage which foreign corn already enjoys as 
against German in the Western districts of the country might be 
further increased if corn from the Eastern Provinces were to be 
saddled with heavier charges on the Rhine and the Elbe. How 
important the waterways are for the conveyance of food supplies 
is illustrated by the fact that between the years 1875-6 and 
1896-8 the amount of corn delivered in Berlin by ship increased 
from 27°6 per cent. to 66°7 per cent. of the total supplies, while 
the amount received by rail fell from 72°5 per cent. to 33°3 
per cent. 

Whether the proposed duties shall be imposed or not, however, 
is first a constitutional and then an international question. Not 
only will Prussia have to win over all the German States con- 
cerned to the necessary alteration of the constitution, but it 
must also satisfy neighbouring States like France, Holland, and 
Austria-Hungary before the freedom of the Rhine and the Elbe 
can be abolished. For the Rhine Navigation Act of October 17, 
1868, was signed, not only by Prussia, Baden, Bavaria, and 
Hesse, but by France and Holland, while to the Elbe Navigation 
Act, securing complete freedom of navigation upon that river, 
Austria was a party. 

Two articles of the Imperial constitution deal with the inland 
waterways and their regulation. Article 4 reserves to the Empire 
the ‘‘ oversight’ of (amongst other matters) ‘‘ the carrying on of 
rafting and navigation on the waterways common to the several 
States and the condition of such waterways, as well as the river 
and other water duties’ (navigation marks, such as lights, buoys, 
&c., being added by an amendment in 1873). As for the duties 
contemplated, article 54 expressly states :— 

“On all natural waterways duties shall only be levied for the 
use of special works (the word is ‘‘ Anstalten’’) which are intended 
to facilitate traffic. These duties, as well as the duties for the 
navigation of such artificial waterways as are State property, 
shall not exceed the costs necessary to the maintenance and 
usual renewal of the plants and works. These provisions shall 
only apply to rafting in so far as it is carried on on navigable 
waterways.” 

There is in the same article a guarantee against preferential 
treatment in the provision which states: ‘‘In the seaports and 


\ 


222 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


on all natural and artificial waterways of the federated States 
the merchant ships of all those States shall be admitted and 
treated on equal terms. The duties which are levied in the 
seaports from sea-going ships or their cargoes for the use of 
shipping works may not exceed the costs necessary for the 
maintenance and usual renewal of these works.” 

Thus the duties legalised and permitted on the rivers are con- 
structively the harbour and similar duties which are charged in 
seaports; of navigation duties in the ordinary sense there is no 
suggestion. The intentions of the framers of the constitution 
are clear from a Federal Council declaration of 1870 stating: 
*‘The idea is no other than that the waterways provided by 
nature shall be thrown open to common use without restriction 
or charge.” Further, that the rivers were intended to be free is 
evident from the fact that the duties which had been levied on 
the Elbe were repealed in 1870, by treaty between the North 
German Confederation and Austria, and those on waterways in 
Alsace-Lorraine were repealed by a law of 1873. 

The attitude of the Prussian Government on this question has 
undergone an entire transformation during the past twelve years. 
Down to 1896 it frankly and without any reservation held the 
view that the levying of river duties was impossible, since the 
free navigation of the rivers was secured by the constitution and 
by international law. In 1902 the desire to introduce such 
duties was openly avowed, but they were still declared to be 
impracticable for the reason just given. In 1904 the wish 
became a resolve, and Prussia now for the first time disputed 
the interpretation of article 54 of the Imperial constitution in 
the sense traditionally and universally received ; in other words, 
it contended that free navigation was not intended to be un- 
limited, and that subject to the constitution as it stands duties 
might legally be levied. Following this decision came in 1905 
the Canal Law with the provision quoted, committing the 
Prussian Government to distinct antagonism to the existing 
freedom of the rivers and to a denial of the interpretation of the 
constitution which has held the field for the last forty years. 

As an illustration of how great events can from little causes 
spring, it is interesting to point out that the whole question, 
with all the inter-State controversies which it has already created 
and the international controversies to which it may yet give rise, 


STATE ENTERPRISE—RAILWAYS AND CANALS 223 


hinges upon the interpretation to be placed upon two words. 
These are the words ‘‘besondere Anstalten.’’ Where the 
greatest jurists differ as to the exact definition of these words, 
it would be rash to bind oneself to a too literal translation, 
though the sense is given by the words already used, viz., 
‘* special works.’’ The point upon which the official Prussian 
jurisconsults profess to differ from all other authorities is whether 
these ‘‘special works,”’ justifying duties, include works of a 
general character executed for the deepening or widening of the 
channel, or merely special works like docks, bridges, warehouses, 
roads, cranes, &c. The official view is that works of the former 
kind are ‘‘ special,” and that the users of the rivers may legally 
be required to contribute to their cost—a view which is in con- 
flict with the entire policy of the States and the Empire since 
the creation of the North German Confederation. It cannot be 
forgotten that even when duties were introduced on the Lower 
Weser because of heavy expenditure on improvements, it required 
a special law because of the admitted constitutional difficulty. 

The Prussian official advocates of river duties, however, have a 
further argument, which is that even if the deepening and widen- 
ing of a river cannot be regarded as ‘‘ special works,’’ a river so 
altered is no longer a ‘“‘natural waterway,’’ and becomes an 
‘‘artificial waterway,’ hence is subject to navigation duties. 
Taking this argument for what it is worth, the point would 
seem to have escaped the acute legal minds behind it that even 
‘‘ artificial waterways’ are not subject to duties according to the 
constitution unless they are State property, a reservation which 
would exclude all rivers. 

The conclusion come to by Dr. Netler, in a monograph on the 
question prepared for the Berlin Corporation of Merchant Elders, 
is that as to the legality of the question there is no room for 
doubt. Both the history and the implicit meaning of the 
constitutional provisions on the subject “‘make it clear that duties 
may not be levied for navigation, nor yet for the improvement 
of the channels of natural streams and the erection of buildings 
serving this purpose, and that duties may only be levied for the 
use of such buildings as do not belong to the nature of the 
stream but are independent of it.” ‘‘If,” adds Dr. Netler, 
‘this state of the law has lately been called in question, the 
reasons are not to be found in the legal domain. It is not really 


224 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


a question of law at all, but a political question, which was made 
acute by section 19 of the Prussian Canal Law and the influence 
of the Conservative [t.e., agrarian] majority of the Prussian 
Lower House on the attitude of the Prussian Government, and 
further owing to the traffic policy of that Government, which 
seeks to counteract any loss in railway revenue by the develop- 
ment of inland navigation.” 

Whatever be Prussia’s motive, however, the question it has 
raised will not be settled by legal argument. In order to carry its 
will Prussia must first win over a requisite majority of the federal 
Statés to an amendment of the constitution, which means that 
fourteen votes against any proposed change will be fatal; it 
must also carry the Reichstag with it; and afterwards it 
must satisfy the treaty rights of France, Holland, and Austria. 

As for the German States, it was originally believed that at least 
the fourteen votes in the Federal Council possessed by Saxony (4), 
Wurtemberg (4), Baden (8), and Hesse (8) would be combined 
against the scheme (Bavaria being regarded as uncertain), but 
this expectation no longer seems likely to be realised. As 
matters now stand, Saxony and Hesse are unconvinced, Baden 
is at least uncommitted, but Wurtemberg, which began by 
opposing, has been won over by the prospect of revenue. Wur- 
temberg has long wanted the deepening of the Neckar. The 
cost is estimated at £1,400,000, and interest and maintenance 
would cost £50,000 yearly, and, as Minister von Pischek said a 
short time ago, ‘‘ Wurtemberg could not carry the work out alone.” 
Hence the Government and some of the Chambers of Commerce 
of that kingdom are attracted by the idea that if Wurtemberg 
agreed to the levying of dues, substantial funds would be 
forthcoming for the canalisation of the Neckar. The Stuttgart 
Chamber of Commerce has formally affirmed its agreement with 
the scheme on condition that Wurtemberg’s share in the proceeds 
shall be definitely secured, and that the navigation of the Neckar 
shall be made possible for vessels of at least 1,000 to 1,200 tons. 

No estimate has been made of the loss which would, per 
contra, fall on the consumers, who import a great amount of 
corn by waterway. 

The Saxon Government, on the other hand, is strongly 
opposed to the duties, and the Diet is unanimously behind it. 
The Finance Minister of this State recently declared: ‘‘ The 


STATE ENTERPRISE—RAILWAYS AND CANALS 225 


Ministry of State now as before decidedly declines to adopt the 
proposed duties. The prosperity of the industry of Saxony is in 
part due to the advantage of a cheap waterway, the Elbe, and 
the Government cannot undertake the responsibility of imposing 
a burden upon shipping, much though it regrets its inability to 
go hand in hand in this matter with the Prussian Government, 
with which it is otherwise on such friendly terms.’’ Even the 
Conservative party in the Diet has declared against duties as 
_ being ‘‘an infraction of the constitution, and in the case of the 
Elbe a serious menace to Saxon industry.” Moreover, a 
conference of Saxon and Bohemian Chambers of Commerce, held 
at Dresden to consider the scheme, resolved unanimously that: 
**The freedom of the Elbe from duties is an indispensable 
condition of the prosperity of industry, trade, and commerce. 
The imposition of navigation duties would involve not only 
economic injury to important mercantile classes, but would 
infringe the Imperial constitution and the Elbe Navigation 
Act.” 

In Baden the position is anomalous, for there the Government 
is disposed to support Prussia, while the industrial and com- 
mercial interests vehemently oppose the duties. At a conference 
of 22 municipal authorities, 24 Chambers of Commerce, and four 
economic societies, held at Mannheim, the resolution was adopted 
that ‘‘any duties, however small, would inflict serious injury 
upon the shipping of the natural inland streams.”’ 

Should Prussia’s project be carried out it is obvious that the 
greatest injury would be suffered by the towns and communities 
situated on the upper reaches of the streams, since it is intended 
that the duties shall be tonnage dues proportionate to distance. 
The Mannheim Chamber of Commerce has estimated that if 
duties were introduced on the Rhine, and if the charge were to 
average only 0°04 pfennig per ton and kilometre, as has been 
suggested, the cost to that town alone would be a million marks, 
or, roughly, £50,000 per annum. Should the calculation be even 
approximately correct, it will serve to indicate the importance of 
the material issues which are at stake. 


16 


CHAPTER XII 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 


The difficulty of preserving the right balance between agriculture and industry 
—The prevalence of one-sided views—Importance of agriculture in 
Germany—Agriculture and military efficiency—The rural movement— 
Number of agricultural owners—Cultivation of the land—The national 
production of grain—Corn-growing in Prussia—Other ground crops— 
Vineyards, orchards, hop-growing, spirit distillation, tobacco-growing, the 
beet-sugar industry—Agriculture and fiscal policy —Effect of industry on 
corn imports—The agricultural State—Conflict between agriculture and 
industry—Prince Bismarck on agrarian policy—Imports and exports of 
wheat and rye in recent years—Demand of the corn-growers—The 
present conditions of agriculture favourable—Higher prices and increased 
value of land—The Prussian Minister of Agriculture quoted—the encum- 
berment of the land—All parties agreed that Protection cannot be sum- 
marily abandoned—The argument of the ‘‘ National Granary ’’—Count 
von Caprivi quoted—Attitude of the Protectionists of the Chair—Prince 
Biilow’s claim to be an “ agrarian Chancellor ’’—Agrarian and industrial 
duties inseparable—Demands of the Agrarian League. 


NE of the most difficult of all Germany’s domestic questions 
is undoubtedly the relationship of agriculture to industry, 
and one of the Government’s most delicate domestic tasks is the 
preservation of the right balance between these two interests. 
For the growth of industry must inevitably be at the expense of — 
agriculture, and the protection of agriculture by one-sided legis- 
lative measures must as certainly involve the handicapping of 
industry. Viewing the problem each from its own exclusive 
standpoint, it is unavoidable that neither agriculture nor industry 
should be able to see the problem ‘‘truly and to see it whole,” 
yet only when it is thus seen and treated ‘can the wider national 
interests receive due consideration. 


There may be a difference of opinion as to how far the 
226 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 227 


Imperial Government has succeeded in holding the scales evenly 
between the rival forces which are competing for the economic 
future of Germany, yet no one questions the wisdom and neces- 
sity of its endeavour to maintain agriculture in a prosperous 
condition and to protect it as far as possible against rapid 
changes to which it could not accommodate itself. For Germany 
has never neglected the vital interests of the soil, and its 
peasantry can still make the proud boast that it is one of the 
soundest bulwarks of the national prosperity and stability. 
While in the United Kingdom the number of persons engaged 
in agriculture declined between 1881 and 1901 from 711 to 495 
per 10,000 of the total population, the decline in Germany 
between 1882 and 1895 was only from 1,783 to 1,554 per 
10,000 ; the decline in the first case was 30 per cent., in the 
second it was 13 per cent. The German occupation census of 
1895 showed that over eighteen million persons, out of a total 
population of fifty-two millions, were directly dependent upon 
agriculture and horticulture, and if forestry be included half a 
million more may be added. 

Perhaps the German agrarian party is itself to blame for the 
fact that much sympathy has been withdrawn from it during 
recent years, for if industry has not been slow in making known 
its needs and claims, the representatives of agriculture, both in 
the Imperial and State Parliaments, have failed to make due 
allowance for the economic revolution which has come over the 
country during the past thirty years, and they demand as per- 
sistently to-day as ever that domestic policy shall unerringly 
follow the lines laid down by Prince Bismarck when the modern 
- industrial era had hardly opened. 

It is only when the facts of Germany’s peculiar position are 
clearly understood that it becomes possible to do justice to both 
parties to the present struggle for predominance. 

In spite of the steady displacement of the rural population 
which has been going on for many years, no greater mistake 
could be made than to suppose that in endeavouring to uphold 
agriculture the German Governments are defending a moribund 
interest. Notwithstanding the perpetual cry of the large land- 
owners that their calling and existence are threatened, there is 
still room and fortune for progressive farming even in the great 
corn-growing districts of the North and East, while the smaller 


228 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


cultivators in general are holding their own in every part of the 
country. 

Many of: the platonic friends of agriculture, who hang on 
to the skirts of the agrarian party, though having nothing in 
common with that party in respect either of interest or ideal, 
support their solicitude for the farmer and his calling by the 
plea that the country is the best antidote to the town, a healthy 
and robust peasantry the best bulwark against the feverish, 
enervating influence of overcrowded centres of population. 
There is, indeed, in the German nature a strong and irradicable 
country instinct : itis significant that in the one German literary 
classic in which trade is glorified, Gustav Freytag’s novel, ‘‘ Soll 
und Haben,”’ the writer suddenly stops short in the midst of his 
story of a business-man’s bustling career in order to recite, in 
eloquent and enthusiastic words, the praises of rural life. 

‘* Happy the man,” he writes, ‘‘ who treads wide tracts of his 
own land; happy he who knows how to subject the powers of 
burgeoning nature to an intelligent will. Everything that makes 
men strong, healthy, and good falls to the lot of the agriculturist. 
His life is an endless struggle, but an endless victory. The pure 
air of heaven strengthens the muscles of his body; the primeval 
order of nature forces his thoughts into an orderly course. He 
is a priest whose duty it is to preserve steadfastness, to preserve 
discipline and morals—the first virtues of a people. While other 
useful employments age, his remains as eternal as the life of 
nature; while other pursuits imprison men within narrow walls, 
in the depths of the earth, or between the boards of a ship, his 
gaze has but two limits—the blue heaven above and the firm 
earth at his feet. His is the highest joy of creation; for what- 
ever he demands from Nature—plant or animal—springs up 
under his hand to a glad existence,’ &c.* 

A recent German economic writer says :— 

‘‘The agricultural population preserves its strength and 
vigour by the free life with nature, and by giving to the towns 
the surplus of its increase of population its influence upon the 
latter is recuperative. The effect of the entire conditions of 
rural life is that the population on the land holds fast to good 
old customs, is not easily detached from all the movements in 
national life, preserves its fidelity and attachment to religion, 

* ¢ Soll und Haben,’’ vol. i. book 3. 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 229 


and attributes importance to good morals. All these qualities 
exert their influence on the State and industry, and give us in the 
rural population a powerful support for our entire national life, 
as has been only too often shown in critical times.”’ * 

It is impossible to quarrel with sentiments of this kind or to 
criticise in an unfriendly spirit the measures in which they are 
often embodied. At the same time, itis only just to bear in mind 
that the towns are not as bad as they have been painted, and 
that the urban degeneration which social reformers, more equipped 
with earnestness than with facts, often deplore has not yet shown 
itself in Germany. For a long time the unproved assertion of 
a well-known agrarian advocate, Professor Sering, to the effect 
that the industrial towns did not supply one-third as many 
efficient men to the army as did the purely agricultural districts 
in proportion to their population, passed unchallenged, even 
where it was not formally endorsed and exploited as agrarian 
capital. There were, however, no conclusive figures from which 
to draw any inference either favourable or unfavourable to this 
contention. Such a basis for judgment was for the first time 
provided by the Bavarian Government, which in 1895 classified 
according to occupations the whole of the recruits called up for 
service with the colours. The result was to upset entirely the 
agrarian theory that the rural districts were a special source of 
efficient soldiers. It was found that although about one-half 
of the population of Bavaria followed agricultural occupations 
agriculture supplied to the army not three times more men than 
industry, but not even as many, viz., 26°4 per cent. against 
28°4 per cent., while trade and commerce supplied 22°8 per 
cent., and other occupations and classes the rest. According 
- to Professor Lujo Brentano, ‘‘ Not quite a third of the men in 
the entire German army belong nowadays to agriculture.”” In 
1902 the proportion was 29°4 per cent., in 1903 it was 31°3 per 
cent., and in 1904 80°9 per cent. In 1906 the largest number 
of defectives fell to agricultural Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklen- 
burg and the Hanse Towns, viz., 8°7 per cent., then followed 
Wurtemberg with 8°6 per cent., and Baden and Hesse-Nassau 
with 8°2 per cent. each. The fewest defectives fell to Lorraine, 
viz., 5°38 per cent. The most efficients came from Kast Prussia, 
viz., 63°8 per cent., West Prussia 63°4 per cent., Lorraine 

* C. Herold, ‘‘ Die wichtigsten Agrarfragen,” p. 4. 


230 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


63°3 per cent., and Alsace 63°1 per cent.—two agricultural and 
two semi-industrial districts. 

The argument of military efficiency apart, however, there is 
every reason why Germany should make a determined effort, 
even at great sacrifice, to preserve agriculture in a successful 
condition, and above all to protect its still large independent 
peasantry and to encourage the multiplication of the small holders. 
For the cry of ‘‘ Back to the land!’’ which is heard there, as else- 
where, has a different and a happier meaning than underlies it in 
» this country. In Germany the rural movement is not an endea- 
vour to put upon the land industrial workers for whom the towns 
have no employment and no homes; it denotes an effort to attract 
back to agricultural pursuits labourers who left the land but 
yesterday and who have not yet fallen hopelessly into the whirlpool 
of urban life, yet for whom there are abundant opportunities of 
work in the country if only the conditions there can be made 
sufficiently attractive. Granting that radical changes will need 
to be made in the systems both of tenure and cultivation—a 
question to which it will be necessary to return later—before 
agriculture will be placed on a healthy basis, enabling it to do 
its best for the country and the nation, the fact remains that the 
lack of efficient labour is the most pressing of all needs. It is 
estimated that every summer several hundred thousand foreign 
labourers have to cross into Germany from the eastern frontiers in 
order to gather the crops instead of the native hands which are 
now finding more profitable or more congenial employment in 
the industrial districts. 

A few figures may be selected, from inexhaustible data of the 
same kind, in illustration of the important and progressive place 
which agriculture in its various forms takes in the national 
economy. According to the latest enumeration, there were in 
1895 in the whole Empire 5,558,317 agricultural holdings of all 
kinds, covering an area of 48,284,742 hectares (of 24 acres), 
comparing with 5,276,344 holdings and 40,178,681 hectares in 
1882; of the holdings in 1895 4,626,483 were purely agri- 
cultural, and 931,834 combined agriculture with forestry, and 
the area devoted to agriculture exclusively was 32,517,941 
hectares. Further, there were in 1895 22,041 purely forestry 
holdings, and the entire area given over to forestry was 
18,725,000 hectares. Between the years named the number of 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY | 231 


agricultural holdings increased by 281,973 and the amount of 
land so employed by 3,106,061 hectares. The increase was 
greatest in the case of holdings under 20 hectares. 

The cultivation of the land underwent change as follows during 
the seventeen years 1883 to 1900 :— 


Increase or 
1883. 1893. 1900. decrease in 

17 years. 

Hectares. Hectares. Hectares. Hectares. 
Arable and garden ae 26,177,350 | 26,243,210 | 26,257,310 | + 79,960 
Vineyards oe 134,620 132,580 135,210 | + 590 
Meadow land . ead 5,903,440 5,915,770 5,956,160 | -- 52,720 
Pastures and enclosures 3°425,110 2,873,030 2,706,710 | — 719,400 


Forests and plantations| 13,908,400 | 13,956,830 | 13,995,870 | + 87,470 


In 1888 45:5 per cent. of the entire surface was used as arable 
and garden land and in 1900 48°6 per cent. ; 17°2 per cent. was 
used as meadow and pasture in 1883 and 16:0 per cent. in 
1900 ; 25°7 per cent. was used as forest and plantation in 1883 
and 25°9 per cent. in 1900. On the other hand, 9°3 per cent. of 
the surface was devoted to buildings, &c., in 1900 as against 
8°3 per cent. in 1883. It is worthy of note that of the nearly 
fourteen million hectares of forest in 1900 4,430,000 hectares 
were in fiscal hands, 2,258,090 hectares belonged to communes, 
517,229 hectares belonged to foundations and corporations of all 
kinds, 257,802 hectares were Crown lands, and 6,503,365 hectares 
were in private hands, an allocation which explains Germany’s 
forest wealth and the high degree of excellence to which the 
trade as well as the science of forestry has been brought in that 
country. Of these forests no less than 2,380,000 hectares had 
been planted within the twenty years preceding 1900. 

Germany no longer feeds itself, and with a rapidly growing 
population and a rising standard of life its imports of wheat 
especially have greatly increased during the past seven years, 
yet the production of the two staple food corns increased from an 
average of 8,490,000 metric tons yearly during the septennial 
period 1893 to 1899 to an average of 9,286,000 metric tons 
yearly during the following seven years 1900 to 1906 in the case 
of rye, and from an average of 3,439,000 tons to one of 3,600,000 
tons in the case of wheat. The heaviest harvest of rye in this 


932 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


period of fourteen years was in 1904, viz., 10,060,762 metric tons, 
after which came 9,904,498 tons in 1893; the heaviest harvest 
of wheat was in 1906, viz., 8,989,568 tons, followed by 3,900,396 
tons in 1902. 

According to the official ‘‘ Statistics of the German Empire ”’ 
the harvest of the fields was as follows in the year 1906 :— 


Per hectare in 


Metric tons. metric tons. 


Winter wheat ... we Aah re 3,570,807 2:04 
Summer ,, ‘y " 368,756 2°02 
Winter rye 9,473,479 1:59 
Summer ,, ies 152,259 1:18 
Winter spelt... 458,954 1°43 
Summer barley th Fe 3,111,309 1°89 
Cate isi. sy ae + wpe 8,431,379 2°00 
Potatoes ay we bee ra 42,936,702 13:0 

Clover hay ... fi aie bes 11,912,726 5°74 
Lucerne ,,_ ... one bus ibs 1,698,998 7:05 
Grass ,, age ses We wie 28,732,930 4°83 


The produce per head of the population was—of rye 328 lb., of 
wheat 204 lb., of spelt 10 lb., of barley 172 lb., of oats 248 Ib., 
and of potatoes 1,511 lb. 

There has also been a progressive increase in the productivity 
of the soil. The yield of rye per hectare throughout the whole 
country increased from 28'2 cwts. on the average of the years 
1893 to 1899 to 30°6 cwts. for the years 1900 to 1905, and the 
yield of wheat increased from 34°2 to 38 cwts. 

Taking the whole country together, there has been a steady if 
slow encroachment of arable upon grazing and pasture land, but 
even more important than the increase of the area devoted to corn- 
growing is the increase of production which has resulted from 
the partial abandonment of the three-field system of cultivation, 
the consequence of which was that a third of the surface was 
perpetually fallow. In 1878 in all Germany 2,308,474 hectares, 
or 8°89 per cent., of the arable and garden land were fallow; in 
1888 1,846,800 hectares, or 7°05 per cent.; in 1898 1,550,201 
hectares, or 5°91 per cent., and in 1900 only 1,230,626 hectares, 
or 4°69 per cent. In Prussia the proportions at the same dates 
were 8°91, 6°76, 5°56, and 4°25 per cent. respectively. In 
general the decline in the amount of fallow land since 1878 has 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 233 


been about 50 per cent., though in some parts of the country, like 
Saxony and Hesse, fallow land has almost entirely disappeared. 
The old system of cultivation is nowadays most followed in 
Mecklenburg, where some 10 per cent. of the land is still allowed 
to lie fallow. 

Referring particularly to Prussia, it is computed that during 
the past century the extent of its arable land increased 44 per 
cent. According to a calculation of Conrad, the area of Prussia 
devoted to corn-growing in 1802 was 10,000,000 hectares, or 
36°51 per cent. of the cultivable surface; in 1852 official returns 
placed it at 12,497,374 hectares, or 44°59 per cent.; and in 1900 
it was 14,424,629 hectares, or 52°60 per cent. Many of the large 
cultivators have still much to learn in science and enterprise, yet 
improved labour-saving machinery is gradually being introduced, 
owing, no doubt, in a large degree to the necessity which the 
corn-growers are under of finding a substitute for the human 
labour which they are unable to attract to the land. In 1904 
there were in the monarchy 394 steam ploughs, nearly all 
worked by two engines, and each capable, on an average, of 
deep ploughing 124 acres of land per day. The use of potash 
for agricultural purposes has increased sevenfold in Germany 
since 1890; in that year 77 kilog. were used to every 100 
hectares of agricultural land, but in 1905, the amount was 
576 kilog., though in Prussia it was no less than 700- kilog. 
per 100 hectares, and in the province of Brandenburg 1,026 
kilog. 

The same favourable figures cannot be recorded for live stock. 
Here there has been a large increase in numbers since 1873, 
except in sheep, but a decrease proportionately to population, 
except in pigs. The number of cattle per 100 inhabitants 
decreased from $8°4 in 1873 to 32°3 in 1904, the number of 
sheep decreased from 60°9 to 13°2 per 100 inhabitants, and the 
number of horses from 8°2 to 71, but the number of pigs 
increased from 17°4 to 31°6. 

Here, however, the catalogue of agrarign enterprises is not 
exhausted. In 1906 there were 300,500 acres of land under 
vines, a higher area than for many years. In Bavaria there 
were 56,790 acres, in Prussia 45,250 acres, in Baden 44,600 
acres, and in Wurtemberg 41,860 acres. The yield of wine 
must in 1906 was 35,985,990 gallons, but that was not much 


234 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


more than half the yield of the good year 1904, when it was 
93,376,970 gallons for a smaller area. The average yield for the 
last five years was 101°4 hectolitres per hectare, or 46 hectolitres 
per acre. 

The number of hardy fruit trees in cultivation was in 1900 
estimated at 168,432,000, of which 52,382,000 were apple, 
25,116,000 pear, 69,486,000 plum, and 21,548,000 cherry-trees, 
without counting the finer fruits. Prussia in that year had 
alone ninety million fruit trees, giving an average of 2,622 to 
every 1,000 inhabitants, though in the province of Saxony the 
average was 5,219. 

The hops, upon which the beer-brewing industry depends, are 
grown in the South, in Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Alsace-Lorraine, 
and Baden, and to a small extent in Prussia. In 1873 93,680 
acres of land were under hops, and the production was 477,000 
metric cwts., of which 402,000 cwts. fell to Bavaria, Wurtemberg, 
Baden, and Alsace-Lorraine. In 1906 there were 62,445 acres 
of land under hops in Bavaria, 18,390 acres in Wurtemberg, 
11,485 acres in Alsace-Lorraine, 5,160 acres in Prussia, 
4,635 acres in Baden, and 87 acres in other States, giving 
a total of 97,152 acres, an area larger than for eight years past, 
excepting only the year 1905. The produce in that year was 
420,000 cwts., and the average for the years 1902-1906 was 
466,000 cwts. The yield per acre in 1906 was 4°3 ewts., and 
the average for the years 1902-1906 was 4°9 cwts., comparing 
with an average yield of 8°8 cwts. per acre in the United 
Kingdom during the years 1898-1907. In 1873 the breweries 
of the country produced 857,000,000 gallons of beer, equal to 
21 gallons per head of the population. In 1905 the breweries 
produced 1,600,610,000 gallons of beer, equal to 264 gallons 
per head, the rate for Bavaria being 60 gallons, for Wurtemberg 
88 gallons, and for Baden 344 gallons, while for the North 
German taxation area it was only 214 gallons. 

Again, in 1906 Germany had 68,405 distilleries of all kinds, 
large and small, 6,867 being agricultural and 33 industrial dis- 
tilleries producing potato spirit, and 8,169 agricultural and 758 — 
industrial distilleries producing corn spirit. The year’s produc- 
tion of alcohol was 96,287,290 gallons, the largest production 
for ten years, of which 77,404,624 gallons were distilled from 
potatoes, and 16,891,250 gallons from corn. 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 235 


The manufacture of sugar from beet also employs an increasing 
number of workpeople. The principal seats are Prussian Saxony, 
Hanover, Brunswick, Anhalt, and Mecklenburg, and the beet is 
grown for the most part in the neighbourhood of the factories. 
In the year 1905-1906 376 factories were engaged in the 
manufacture of sugar. The area devoted to beet was 1,179,300 
acres, and the quantity of beets used was 15,733,478 metric 
tons, a larger amount than since 1901-1902. The production 
was 2,314,779 tons of raw sugar and 328,752 tons of molasses. 
Of the 876 sugar factories, 286 were in Prussia (108 in the 
province of Saxony), which country had a production of 
1,861,970 tons of sugar and 260,859 tons of molasses. 

The area under tobacco varies greatly with the seasons, a 
good season giving so satisfactory a return that a larger area is 
at once put under cultivation, but the general tendency during 
the past twenty years has been a declining one. The average 
area under cultivation during the five years 1886-1890 was 
48,425 acres, during the years 1891-1895 48,595 acres, during 
the years 1896-1900 45,824 acres, and during the years 1901- 
1905 it was 40,417 acres, the year 1905 having an area of 
35,277 acres. During the same period the number of tobacco 
planters has fallen from an average of 173,561 per annum for 
the years 1886-1890 to 108,847 for the years 1901-1905, the 
number in 1905 being 98,119. The greatest falling off has been 
in the small planters with farms of 25 acres and under, who 
have decreased to barely one-third the number twenty years ago. 
The production of dried tobacco leaves has fallen from an average 
of 87,488 metric tons annually for the years 1886-1890 to 
35,405 tons for the years 1901-1905. 

Figures like these show the extent and variety of agrarian 
enterprise, and give some indication of the immense influence 
which is nowadays behind the demand for the retention of 
protective duties. 

It is only since the seventies of last century, however, that 
German agriculture has been the special object of fiscal policy. 
Down to the middle of the century it was so far prosperous that 
the corn-growers had only nominal protection, and desired none 
at all, insomuch that in 1865 the duties were allowed to lapse. 
Herr von Bismarck (afterwards Imperial Chancellor and author 
of the Customs Tariff of 1879) wrote in 1848: ‘‘ With regard to 


236 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


indirect taxation we hear far more of the protective system which 
favours our home manufacturers than of the free trade necessary 
to the agricultural population.’’ At that time the German 
corn-grower did not trouble much about a home monopoly, for he 
could sell his produce elsewhere, if necessary, on advantageous 
terms. A large amount of wheat and rye was regularly exported 
to England, even when there was a deficient crop at home, for 
higher prices could be obtained there than the poor of his own 
towns were able to pay, and these in times of scarcity had to be 
contented with maize. During the decade preceding 1860 the 
average wholesale price of wheat in the markets of Prussia was 
44s. 6d. per Imperial quarter, in Bavaria 45s. 11d., and in 
Wiirtemberg (1852-1859) 49s. 8d.; the average wholesale 
price of rye during the same period was 8s. 1d. per cwt. in 
Prussia, 8s. 44d. in Bavaria, and 8s. 84d. in Wurtemberg. 
During the succeeding ten years the average price of wheat fell 
in Prussia to 44s. 74d., in Bavaria to 43s. 5d., and in Wurtem- 
berg to 46s. 34d. per Imperial quarter ; and the average price of 
rye to 7s. 10d. per cwt. in Prussia, 7s. 4d. in Bavaria, and 
8s. 4d. in Wurtemberg; but there was a recovery during the 
earlier part of the following decade, 1870-1879, when the 
average prices were 48s. 34d., 53s. 14d., and 51s. per quarter 
respectively in the three kingdoms in the case of wheat, and 
in the case of rye 8s. 7d., 9s. 1d., and 9s. 8d. per cwt. 
respectively. | 

It may be asked, did not agriculture, like industry, share in 
the larger prosperity which came to the country after the close 
of the French war? For a time it did share—so long, in fact, 
as corn prices continued high. The short run of good prices 
led, however, to the excessive capitalisation of estates, and for a 
time farms on re-sale and re-lease changed hands at prices which 
proved an impossible load upon their new holders directly the brief 
spell of prosperity passed away. Land fell again, and with the 
fall disappeared much, and often the whole, of the capital of men 
who had bought by the aid of credit in times of inflated values, 
while many large proprietors found it impossible to adjust them- 
selves to the altered condition of things, and the state of agri- 
culture was made worse by the higher cost of labour, caused on 
the one hand by the migration from the rural districts to the 
industrial towns, and on the other hand by the higher cost of 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 237 


living and the unrest of the awakened agricultural labourer even 
when he remained on his native soil. Worse still for the corn- 
grower was the competition, no longer of Russia only but ot 
America and Argentina, which now began to take threatening 
dimensions, depressing the price of the principal foodstuff, rye, 
to a price at which it could not be profitably cultivated at home. 
Hence the demand for Protection which began to be heard in the 
middle of the ’seventies, a demand to which Prince Bismarck for 
a, time hesitated to listen, yet to which he entirely capitulated in 
1879, when the first duty of sixpence per cwt. was imposed on 
wheat and rye. 

At this time the home corn-growers were still able, on the 
whole, to cover the nation’s food requirements, and sometimes 
they had a surplus for export. The scale turned after the indus- 
trial expansion which began early in the ’seventies had taken 
settled form and had become a great national movement. The 
growth of industry enormously increased the labouring popula- 
tion in the towns, creating a class of consumers with higher 
needs and ampler means for satisfying those needs. A wholesale 
movement from the rural districts began, with the result that 
even in the stagnant country districts labour began to have a 
competitive value. 

Germany had hitherto had a large surplus population, and 
this population it had sent across the seas—to the United 
States, to Brazil, to Australia, to South Africa. Now it had no 
men to spare; the mines, the factories, the workshops called for 
hands and would not be satisfied. From the early eighties the 
emigration movement was checked, and though there have been 
fluctuations since, the general movement has been downward, 
until to-day the outward flow of population is insignificant. In 
1871 the emigrants from the German Empire who sailed by 
home ports and Antwerp numbered 75,912, in 1872 the number 
was 125,650, in 1878 it was 103,638 ; then there was a fall to 
45,112 in 1874, to 30,773 in 1875, to 28,868 in 1876, to 21,964 
in 1877, and in 1878 the number was 24,217. During the 
succeeding twelve years there was a great increase, rising from 
117,097 in 1880 to 220,092 in 1881, then falling, after fluctua- 
tions, to 116,339 in 1892, since when the decline has been 
continuous. To-day the number of emigrants is only one-fourth 
of what it was twenty years ago. 


238 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


German Emigrants leaving from all Ports, Home and Foreign, 


Per 1,000 of the 
Number. Population. 
1876 see ps eee ave 29,644 0°69 
1877 oes af bie + 22,898 0°53 
1878 ibe ae A Hy 25,627 0°58 
1879 saa les ee nis 35,888 0:80 
1880 ote wae see whe 117,097 2°60 
1881 vee ae Wve obs 220,902 4'86 
1882 ae ose see eee 203,585 4°45 
1883 ar an ne dee 173,616 3°77 
1884 dvs wee was ae 149,065 3°22 
1885 ay, me oom baa 110,119 2°36 
1886 deve bab see ae 83,225 1:77 
1887 vee ap ane ved 104,787 2°20 
1888 pas tye. sisi mee 103,951 2°16 
1889 oe oee aed cad 96,070 1:97 
1890 oub aA ‘ae ad 97,103 1:97 
1891 wee apa ene aoe 120,089 2°41 
1892 soe ont at des 116,339 2°31 
1893 oe bes ins +e 87,677 1°73 
1894 eas se waa a8 40,964 0:80 
1895 aie bia =. ve 37,498 0°72 
1896 dnp bee Fens win 33,824 0°64 
1897 pas eas ri Aas 24,631 0°46 
1898 ial ive Vea des 22,221 0°41 
1899 gon nae ie awe 24,323 0°44 
1900 a} = date coe 22,309 0°40 
1901 ay oan nes sha 22,073 0°39 
1902 nas sae ee pa 32,098 0°56 
1903 dee bee Av! bea 36,310 0°62 
1904 een one 4s 7 27,984 0°47 
1905 aes eee nee ‘ee 28,075 0°47 
1906 see ese vats dee 31,074 0°50 


Twenty-five, and even twenty years ago, however, there was 
as yet no sign of the acute conflict which was soon to break out 
between agriculture and industry. The first moderate duties did 
not appreciably affect the price of food, and the manufacturing 
classes were able to obtain, as before, an unlimited amount of 
labour at wages which, though increasing, seem incredibly low 
when compared with those to which the working classes have in 
recent years become accustomed. There was no change in the 
general principles of national policy, for this was still based on 
the assumption that Germany was, and was destined to continue, 
essentially an agricultural State, that corn-growing was the chief 
of national industries, and that the first duty of Ministers and 
Parliaments was to safeguard the prosperity of the great land- 
owners and the large peasants. The occupation census of 1895 
had shown, indeed, that agriculture no longer gave work and 
livelihood to as large a proportion of the population as in 1882, 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 239 


yet there had been no actual diminution—as we have seen, there 
was a small increase—in the pastoral class, and this fact was 
held to prove that the position of agriculture as the basis of 
national economy was not assailed. Yet the tide of industry was in 
full flux, and all the time it was pressing with growing force on the 
agrarian from two sides. On the one hand, the shortening of 
his labour supplies, owing to the competition of the factory towns, 
was increasing his costs of production, while, on the other hand, 
the prices of his products were still falling. The heaviest fall 
occurred in the decade 1880-1889, when the average price of the 
quarter of wheat was in Prussia 40s. 2d., in Bavaria 45s. 94d., 
and in Wurtemburg 42s. 10d., the lowest prices being reached 
in 1886 in Prussia, viz., 84s. 2d.; in 1885 in Bavaria, 40s. 7d. ; 
and in 1884 in Wurtemberg, 38s. 1d.; while the average price 
of rye per cwt. was 7s. 10d. in Prussia, 8s. 5d. in Bavaria, and 
8s. 9d. in Wurtemberg, the lowest figures being 6s. 4d. in Prussia 
(1887), 7s. 2d. in Bavaria (1887), and 7s. 6d. in Wurtemberg 
(1886). 

Worse still, the corn-grower saw that the countries to 
which Germany was beginning to export manufactured goods on 
@ scale never experienced before were sending back corn and 
other farm produce in return, so that a growing portion of the 
nation’s food supply was being produced abroad. Added to 
this, an entire change in the spirit of legislation came about 
when Prince Bismarck gave place to Count von Caprivi. The 
domestic policy of Prince Bismarck had been consistently 
agrarian, though the word had not yet passed into currency in 
the modern sinister sense. Bismarck was profoundly convinced 
that any measure passed for the benefit of agriculture was bound 
to promote the well-being of the entire nation concurrently, and 
he must not be accused of insincerity when he uttered words 
like the following: ‘‘ Whenever I have come forward on behalf 
of landed property it has not been in the interest of the pro- 
prietors of my own class, but because I see in the decline of 
agriculture one of the greatest dangers to our permanence as a 
State.” 

Count von Caprivi had not long been Chancellor before 
he recognised that Germany could no longer be regarded, and 
legislated for, as an exclusively agricultural State, but that new 
economic forces had arisen in whose development and free play 


240 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


the national prosperity was equally bound up. From the 
moment the policy of the State was directed from this new 
standpoint agriculture and industry inevitably stood in open 
antagonism. 

It is not the purpose of these pages to trace the history of 
the protective tariffs and other controversial measures which 
have been adopted for the benefit of agriculture, but simply to 
indicate in broad outline the economic transition through which 
Germany is passing, and any detailed account of what is known 
as the agrarian movement would be out of place here. Some 
answer must, however, be attempted to the questions—two in 
form though one in substance—is Germany able to feed its own 
people, and to what extent is existing legislation able to promote 
this end? 

According to the German Government’s estimate, prepared 
when the present Customs Tariff was under parliamentary 
consideration, the corn-growers of the country were only able, on 
the average of the years 1895 to 1900, to supply 92°6 per cent. 
of the nation’s needs in rye and 73°7 per cent. in wheat and 
spelt. During those years there was on the average an excess of 
imports over exports of 591,760 metric tons of rye and 1,263,240 
tons of wheat and spelt. During more recent years Germany 
has had to import from one and three quarters to two million 
tons of wheat, while the deficit in rye averaged nearly half a 
million tons in the years 1902-1905 :— 


Wheat. 








Excess of Imports 


Imports in Exports in 
in Metric Tons. 


Year. Metric Tons. Metric Tons. 








1902 2,201,974 263,064 1,938,910 
1903 2,124,643 347,272 1,777,371 
1904 2,214,820 330,483 1,884,337 
1905 2,482,943 337,685 2,045,258 
Rye. 
1902 990,638 143,110 847,528 
1903 833,790 222,384 611,406 
1904 464,948 359,871 105,077 
1905 589,926 331,919 258,007 


At the same time the imports of wheaten flour averaged 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 241 


during the years 1903 to 1905 25,500 tons and the exports 
56,400 tons, while the imports of rye flour averaged 1,770 tons 
and the exports 99,705 tons. On the whole, therefore, Germany 
has of late years become rather more dependent upon foreign 
food supplies than before. 

Notwithstanding this, there has been a considerable increase 
in the production of both food-corns. The average production 
of wheat during the seven years 1900 to 1906 was 25,239,949 
metric tons, and during the preceding seven years 1893 to 1899 
24,051,454 tons, showing an increase of 1,188,495 tons, or 
169,785 tons per annum. The average production of rye during 
the seven years 1900 to 1906 was 65,405,289 metric tons, and 
during the preceding seven years 59,422,364 tons, showing an 
increase of 5,982,725 tons, equal to 854,675 tons per annum. 
But in the interval the population had increased from 52,280,000 
in 1895 to 60,641,000 in 1905, an increase of 8,861,000. While 
the increase of population had thus amounted to 16'0 per cent., 
the increase in the production of wheat and rye together barely 
reached half this percentage. Allowing for an estimated con- 
sumption of 440 lb. of wheat and rye per head, there was a 
shortage in production of about three-quarters of a million tons. 
It is clear that at present the home corn-growers, while they 
are not going back, are not meeting the larger demand caused 
by the increase of population and an improving standard of 
life. 

Perhaps the most significant fact about the home production 
of food-corn is one which has not hitherto received the recog- 
nition which it deserves. The principal deficit is in wheat, the 
consumption of which is steadily increasing, while that of rye 
declines. It will be a surprise to many persons who only know 
the Germans as a rye-bread-eating people to be told that over 
80 per cent. of the grain consumed is wheat. The explanation 
lies, of course, in the fact that a large amount of pure wheat 
bread is eaten in the form of rolls, and that throughout the 
country the so-called rye-loaf generally has an admixture of 
from 20 to 38 per cent. of the same flour. Hitherto it has been 
assumed that the soil of the great corn-growing districts of the 
East is more suited to rye than to wheat, and in the tariff of 
1902 the duty on wheat was fixed higher than that on rye for 
the deliberate purpose of giving rye additional encouragement. 

17 


242 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


It will be interesting to see how far the corn-growers of 
Prussia are able and willing to adjust production to demands 
which are changing qualitatively as well as quantitatively. 
Their constant rejoinder to the critics of protective policy has 
been that production is merely a question of price, and that, 
given a remunerative return on capital, the national granary 
can supply the national need. It is obvious, however, that in 
a country with such diversity of soil, climate, and transport 
conditions as Germany, no estimate of costs of production could 
be suggested would be generally acceptable. Professor Drechsler, 
calculating the cost in Hanover in 1888, came to the conclusion 
that wheat could not be produced for less than £8 10s. 7d. per 
ton and rye for less than £7 11s. 9d., the maximum rates being 
£9 12s. for wheat and £9 11s. 9d. for rye grown on bad or difficult 
land, and the minimum rates £6 10s. 7d. for wheat and £5 5s. 5d. 
for rye grown on good land. A more recent estimate made by 
Herr Evert * is £7 10s. for rye and £10 for wheat, while another 
agricultural writer, Herr C. Herold, places the cost of producing 
rye remuneratively at £8 and that of wheat £10, a surplus of 
10s. per ton being left in each case.t The logical agrarian 
protectionist refuses to be bound by data of this kind, however, 
and states his demands in the simple formula, ‘‘ The German 
market for the German corn-grower.’’ He insists that the 
duties must be retained at such a height as will eventually 
make Germany independent of the rest of the world for its food 
supplies, ignoring the fact that every new pair of hands that 
goes to swell the industrial army adds to the difficulty of 
preserving the ‘“‘ agricultural State.’ 

For the present, owing to a combination of auspicious 
influences, the conditions of agriculture are exceptionally 
favourable. Baron von Goler, one of the most authoritative 
representatives of the agrarian party, stated in February, 
1908, that ‘‘ German agriculture was in a better position 
than for many decades. He had for years complained of agri- 
cultural distress, but he must now confess that agriculture had 
revived and was more profitable than before. It might seem 
hazardous for an agrarian to talk thus, but out of the 
abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” He added that 


* « Der deutsche Osten,’’ p. 18. 
t ‘‘ Die wichtigsten Agrarfragen,” p. 16. 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 243 


the agriculturists owed this state of things in great measure to 
the new customs tariff. 

Every sign points to the accuracy of this estimate. It 
was stated in the Reichstag on March 2, 1907, on the authority 
of the German Agricultural Society (Landwirthschaftsgesell- 
schaft) that the protective duties had during the year 1906 
increased the value of German real estate by no less a 
sum than £68,250,000. One has only to consult the records 
of sales of agricultural estates to find evidence of the 
enormously increased capital value which has been created by 
the higher prices obtained owing to the last revision of the 
duties, assisted, no doubt, by a shortage of corn, and by the ex- 
ceptional run of prosperity which industry has enjoyed, leading 
to an increased national spending power.* Speaking for a 
typical corn-growing district, the Chamber of Agriculture of the 
province of West Prussia lately published the following com- 
parative return of prices per hectare (24 acres) of arable land: 
1901, £17 8s.; 1902, £21 5s.; 1903, £29 4s.; 1904, £30 3s.; 
and 1905, £54 3s., showing an increase (which had not ceased 
in 1905) of over 200 per cent. in four years. 

The actual cultivators have also benefited by the higher prices 
of corn and farm stock which have prevailed for some time, but 
in their case a reaction is certain, and in the opinion of some 
authorities has already set in. For the increased capital value 
of land has advanced rents, while at the same time labour, 
material, and other costs of production have become dearer, 
leaving a smaller margin of profit. ‘‘ According to my observa- 
tion and experience,’’ writes Herr Herold, ‘‘ leasehold rents are 


* The following instances, referring to the spring of 1907, of Prussian estates 
changing hands at larger figures, have been taken at random :— 

1. The estate of Staldssen, 280 morgen, bought for £10,800, sold for £11,500, 
increase 6°5 per cent. 

2. Estate at Wolsko sold for £5,250, bought a year before for £4,700, increase 
11°7 per cent. 

3. The Wenskowethen estate, sold for £6,000, bought ten years ago for £3,750, 
increase 60 per cent. 

4, The estate of Georgenau, near Rosengarten, sold for £6,500, bought a year 
ago for £5,400, increase 20°3 per cent. 

5. The estate Ernstfelde, near Insterburg, sold for £17,500, bought six years 
ago for £14,500, increase 20°7 per cent. 

96. The manor Friedrichshof, near Bublitz, sold for £9,750, bought two years 
ago for £5,000, increase 95 per cent.; and changed hands six years before that 
for £2,700, increase to date 261 per cent. 

7. Estate in the circle of Wehlau, of 1,400 morgen, sold for £26,150, though 
- bought three years ago for £12,500, increase 52°2 per cent. 


244 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


in general too high for present conditions. Many leaseholders 
are becoming bankrupt, others manage by great exertion and by 
living in restricted circumstances to drag out a necessitous 
existence. The experience of better circumstances in agriculture 
in former days and the keen competition called forth by the 
endeavour of many young people to create an independent 
position for themselves drive up leasehold rents to an unhealthy 
height.”’ 

The present Prussian Minister of Agriculture, Herr von Arnim, 
has lately said the same thing. Speaking in the Diet on 
February 7, 1907, on taking office, he stated :— 

‘Tt is my conviction that the increase in wages and the 
increase of the costs of production caused by the higher prices 
prevailing all round weigh heavily against the advantages which 
the higher prices of agricultural produce have conferred upon 
the farmer, especially when it is remembered that the higher 
prices of cattle are bound to be temporary. Taking all this 
into account, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that the 
higher prices of landed estates which we see at present are not 
justified by the increased returns, but are due to a larger demand 
for land, produced by the increased purchases by banks, domains, 
and people who have become rich in industry. This general 
rise in prices is’ especially serious since it is reflected not only 
in the purchase of estates, but in inheritance, and on every 
succession it gives rise to increased indebtedness. This steadily 
increasing indebtedness is one of the principal evils of agri- 
culture, and is one of the chief reasons why agriculture is so 
little able to withstand economic crises. Agriculture then finds 
itself in a generation in the old position. The slightest re- 
duction in duties means acute distress. But protective legislation 
will only justify itself if we adopt measures for combating 
unfavourable symptoms, and one of our tasks is to release landed 
property from debt.”’ | 

It would appear that this see-saw movement in the fortunes of 
agriculture is inseparable from Protection, and that the hope of 
steadying prices and ensuring to the corn-grower certain and 
constant profits on a moderate level has so far proved unrealis- 
able. Judging by the past, it is impossible to resist the 
conclusion that the improvement in the condition of agriculture 
which has unquestionably taken place, though it is now shared 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 245 


more or less by all sections of the agricultural class, owners and 
tenants equally, will eventually prove in the main advantageous 
to the owners. As in earlier times of prosperity, higher prices 
will create unhealthy land values, and at the end of a brief 
period of relief the actual cultivators of the soil will find them- 
selves once more crippled in resources and paying advanced rents 
in face of falling returns. 

It should also be borne in mind that even among the corn- 
growers themselves the benefits of Protection are shared very 
unequally. The ‘‘ Handbook of the Conservative Party ’”’ says 
frankly that ‘‘ The protection of home agriculture means essen- 
tially the protection of corn-growing.’’ No one has doubted 
this; but it follows as a corollary that the protection of corn- 
growing means the protection of a numerically small section of 
the agricultural class and positive disadvantage to a far larger 
section, which only grows corn for its own consumption, and is, 
as a consequence, but little affected by the fluctuations of the 
market. According to an estimate used by Count von Caprivi, 
when defending his commercial treaties against attack in 1892, 
and later by Prince Hohenlohe, only corn-growing farms of at 
least 124 acres have any direct interest in the price of corn, 
which means that only from one-fourth to three-tenths of the 
entire agricultural class is affected one way or the other. 

Reference has already been made incidentally to the serious 
question of agrarian indebtedness. In the opinion of all writers 
on the subject the encumberment of the land is one of the 
greatest of all obstacles in the way of the permanently healthy 
condition of agriculture. It is probably under the mark to say 
that on the whole over half the sale value of the agricultural 
land of Prussia is covered by mortgage, and here again the East 
of the kingdom is in a far worse plight than the West. It has 
been estimated* that for every £100 of capital invested in land 
by independent proprietors following agriculture as their principal 
occupation in Prussia, there is a debt of £188 10s. The 
position of those who only follow agriculture as a secondary 
occupation, either for business or pleasure, is more favourable, 
for here the indebtedness is only equal to one-half the capital 
invested. No direct official information of recent date exists on 
this subject, but safe conclusions can be drawn by the study of 

* ‘ Statistische Korrespondenz,”’ | 


246 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


the taxation returns. Under the Prussian Income Tax Law 
persons with an income exceeding £150 are required to declare 
the value of their real and personal estate and the amount of 
debt upon the same. In 1899 the aggregate value of the estate 
of persons of this class was £751,650,000, of which £513,500,000 
consisted of real and £238,150,000 of personal estate, and the 
debt amounted to £189,900,000, or 25°3 per cent. of the whole. 
In the Eastern Provinces of East Prussia, West Prussia, 
Brandenburg, Pomerania, Posen, and Silesia the indebtedness 
amounted to 47°7 per cent. in the case of land; in the 
Western Provinces, 24°7 per cent. Taking real and personal 
estate together, the percentage of indebtedness was 31°4 per 
cent. in the East and 14°7 per cent. in the West. Taking 
individual provinces the indebtedness on real estate was :— 


HAST. WEsz. 
West Prussia ... ee. 58°23 | Schleswig-Holstein eee 30°09 
Pomerania 7 «. 52°50 | Hesse-Nassau ioe ese, 20°50 
East Prussia ren eel! OL OO. 1 SORROELY 6 taiee oa we. «29°74 
Posen nae ade .-. 50°74 | Rhineland... see oo. 24°84 
Brandenburg eae .. 46°16 | Westphalia ea eos =22°42 
Silesia ee vibe -.- 41°57 | Hanover ... aaa --- 20°68 


It is not without significance that the greatest encumberment 
falls to the region of large estates, and a comparatively light 
indebtedness to that in which peasant properties are specially 
numerous. The Berlin Post wrote recently: ‘There are 
estates, far from the larger towns, with good communications, 
which, conducted on the old economic methods, give little return, 
which are burdened with mortgages and other debts, and are 
unable to adequately support the numerous members of their old 
families. And these are families whose names appear often in 
the Prussian officers’ list, are engraved in golden letters in the 
rolls of honour of Frederick the Great, and their preservation is 
a profound interest of the State, in that the military spirit of the 
best ages lives in them as a tradition, that imponderable quantity 
which cannot be attained or imitated at a moment’s notice by 
others. How can these families, how can the landed proprietors 
in the Kast especially, be helped?’’ The same question was 
raised by the President of the Agrarian League at a meeting of 
the Prussian Economic Collegium in March, 1907. ‘‘ How is a 
landed proprietor to be kept permanently in a sound condition?” 
he asked. ‘‘ First, naturally, by making his property sufficiently 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 247 


remunerative by resort to the utmost possible technical develop- 
ment, but also by being disencumbered of debt, a relief which 
must be permanent.”’ 

On the other hand, a recent investigation made by the 
Statistical Office of Baden, a State with a comparatively small 
amount of corn-growing and with many little proprietors, showed 
no excessive proportion of indebtedness, and also brought to 
light the fact that a considerable part of the mortgages held on 
land was in the hands of farmers. 

The Government has on several occasions seriously con- 
sidered what measures might be feasible with a view to relieving 
the present burden of debt, which paralyses so many large 
landowners and checks enterprise, and at the same time 
to preventing excessive encumbrance in the future. No plan, 
however, would appear to have yet been devised which would not 
greatly restrict the free action of the owners, and to that extent 
decrease the selling value of their estates. 

Nor is that the only difficulty. It is recognised that the 
first condition of any State regulation of agrarian debts must 
be the fixture of a maximum limit of mortgage, beyond which 
an impecunious landowner would have to rely on personal credit. 
It is, however, at least arguable that the effect of this restriction 
might be to make improvident men more unwise than ever in their 
monetary arrangements, for a debtor in difficulties will borrow 
anyhow, and if rational ways are closed to him he will resort to 
irrational. Further, any attempt to lay down general limits of debt 
would in practice be impossible, for the conditions of agriculture 
are so different that every class of property and form of cultiva- 
tion would require special consideration. Upon one point the 
Government would appear to be determined: it shows no 
inclination to take upon itself any direct guarantee for the 
payment of either capital or interest under any scheme for the 
regulation of debts which may be found practicable. 

To sum up, it may be taken for granted that for a long time to 
come the preservation of agriculture in a prosperous condition 
will be one of the first objects of domestic policy in Germany. 
There is difference of opinion as to the measures best suited to 
attain the end in view, and as to the extent to which the aid of 
the State should be sought—a difference showing itself by such 
extremes as, on the one hand, the proposal of the ultra- 


248 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


agrarians that the State should set up a monopoly of corn, and, 
on the other hand, the Radical demand that the large estates 
should all be summarily parcelled up into a multitude of small 
holdings—but no serious politicians suggest that a mere policy 
of laissez faire can ever again be followed in regard to an 
industry so closely related to the feeding of the people. Even 
some of the more responsible Socialist leaders repudiate the 
idea that Protection could be summarily abandoned, and avow 
their readiness to make any reasonable sacrifice for the sake 
of the genuine cultivators of the soil. In brief, in their 
attitude towards agrarian remedies parties are no longer divided 
on the question of principle, but on that of measure and degree. 
From the political standpoint alone it is held that Germany’s 
dependence upon foreign food supplies is a danger which no 
responsible statesman ought to contemplate. However lament- 
able it may be that agriculture has been allowed to decay in the 
United Kingdom, our nation’s food is at any rate secured by the 
existence of a navy powerful enough to keep clear the trade 
routes of the seas. Germany possesses no such security, and 
in its absence the maintenance of the national granary, the 
corn lands of the North and East, in as abundant and efficient 
a condition as possible must be a primary object of domestic 
policy. Of this Count von Caprivi himself, though the first 
responsible statesman to recognise the advent of the industrial 
era and the urgent need of cheaper food for the labouring class, 
was no less sensible than the extremest Protectionist. 

‘*The existence of the State is at stake,’ he said in the 
Reichstag on December 10, 1891, ‘‘ when it is not in a position 
to depend on its own sources of supply. Itis my conviction 
that we cannot afford to dispense with such a production of corn 
as would be sufficient in an emergency to feed our increasing 
population, even if under restrictions, in the event of war. The 
very existence of the State would be at stake if it were not able 
to live upon its own resources. I regard it as the better 
policy that Germany should rely upon its own agriculture than 
that it should trust to the uncertain calculation of help from 
a third party in the event of war. It is my unshakable 
conviction that in a future war the feeding of the army and 
the country may play an absolutely decisive part.” ad 

It is this aspect of the question which specially appeals 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 249 


to many Protectionists of the Chair, who view with misgiving the 
multiplication of industry without a corresponding increase in the 
home supply of food, and cherish the ideal of the self-contained 
State. Goods are not exchanged for money but for other 
goods, and in the case of Germany a great part of these other 
goods necessarily takes the form of raw materials and food. So 
long as an exchange on that basis can be contracted, and the 
ocean remains open to the traffic of all nations—that is, during 
times of peace—Germany may feel safe, but only so long. 
Arguing thus, the academic Protectionist lays stress upon the 
preservation of the home market for home industry, combined 
with such an increase in the production of corn as may enable 
Germany to become an exporting instead of an importing country, 
and disparages the export trade save in so far as it is required 
by the necessities of international exchange. The same idea 
was held by that industrial pioneer George von Siemens, who 
used to contend that the future of German industry depended 
more upon the development of the home markets than upon 
foreign trade. ‘‘ German industry,’’ he once said, ‘‘ will achieve 
more for itself by introducing a curtain into every cottage window 
and a carpet into every cottage parlour than by pushing the 
German export business, and making German industry dependent 
upon the purchasing power and the good-will of foreigners.”’ 

In his book, ‘‘ Deutschland als Industriestaat,’’ Professor 
Oldenburg puts this argument in the following words :— 

‘‘The national economy has been compared to a building 
arranged in stories. The strong ground-floor is agriculture, 
and it bears the industrial superstructure, the upper story, upon 
its shoulders. So long as uncultivated land remains at disposal 
the basement may be extended to the frontier of the country, 
and this extended basement can bear a correspondingly 
extended industrial story. But the industrial story cannot be 
extended further than the agricultural foundation extends unless 
its population live on foreign food and its manufactures be 
exchanged for this foreign food—in other words, unless an export 
industry be created which works for foreign countries and lives 
by them. ‘The industrial story grows in that case laterally 
in the air and across the national frontier above foreign soil, 
artificially supported on the pillars of foreign trade, which rest on 
that foreign soil. But these pillars will only remain on foreign 


250 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


soil so long as the owner of the soil allows them. If one day he 
wishes to use the land himself the overhanging story, with the 
pillars beneath it, will collapse. In like manner if we establish 
an export industry employing five million men who live on 
America’s surplus of corn, these five million men with their 
future existence are dependent on that American surplus con- 
tinuing permanently and being specially set apart for exchange 
for their manufactures.”’ 

The attractive argument of the national granary is not, how- 
ever, the argument upon which the agrarian rests his claim to 
special protection.* However patriotic he may be, the East Elbe 
corn-grower is too honest to pretend that he cultivates his fields 
for the purpose of making Germany independent of foreign food 
supplies in time of war, nor is there any reason to suppose that, 
either in good seasons or bad, he will ever sell his produce 
one whit more cheaply than his foreign rival. When several 
years ago the harvest was so abundant that there seemed a 
fear that prices would be forced down to an unremunerative level, 
an agrarian orator deliberately advocated the burning of a 
portion of the crop so that an artificial condition of scarcity 
might be produced. In ordinary times also the corn-growers make 
no systematic attempt to provide the needs of the home market 
first, but like good business men sell at home or abroad just as 
advantage dictates. During the years 1906 and 1907, when 
corn prices everywhere rose to an unparalleled height, the home 
producer made a specially good business by sending large 
quantities of rye out of the country, thus keeping the home 
market sufficiently short to prevent any relapse in _ prices. 
No one dreamed of putting into force the attractive theory of 
‘‘German corn for German mouths.’’ The best prices were 
taken wherever they were offered, and the satisfaction of the 


* It is a favourite idea with the Conservative party that a year’s supply 
of corn from abroad should be kept stored in towers after the fashion of the Julius 
Tower in which the Imperial War Chest of six million pounds is preserved 
at Spandau. Such asupply would be over two million tons of wheat and 
rye, with a value varying from seven and a half to fifteen million pounds, with- 
out counting the enormous accompanying costs. Frederick the Great stored 
corn in the same way, but for the purpose of equalising prices in case of 
scarcity, on the principle laid down by him in 1768: “In the matter of prices it 
is the prince’s duty to hold the balance evenly between the interests of the 
nobleman, the domain tenant, and the peasant on the one hand, and the 
interests of the soldiers [who then bought their own bread] and the factory 
workers on the other,” 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 251 


home demand was entirely left to the accidents of the market. 
In thus acting the corn-growers merely did what any other interest 
would have done under similar circumstances, and the reproaches 
levelled against them were irrational: they nevertheless 
furnished conclusive proof that attempts to apply the theory of 
the terra clausa in the matter of feeding a great nation are apt to 
fail in the critical moment. 

The attitude of the present Imperial Chancellor has been 
sufficiently proved by his Customs Tariff policy; but since the 
increase of the agricultural duties in 1902 (taking effect in 
March, 1906), he has reaffirmed his entire acceptance of the 
agrarian standpoint. Speaking at a banquet of the Agri- 
cultural Council in Berlin on March 14, 1907, Prince Bulow 
said :— 

“A grave and difficult political struggle [the elections to the 
Reichstag] is behind us, which has called forth great excitement, 
but has also brought to the front again the sound commonsense 
and patriotic sentiment of the German nation, for struggle is 
the parent of all things. In this struggle one tie has happily 
not been weakened, but rather, as I hope, strengthened—the 
confidence between the German Chancellor and German agri- 
culture. This confidence will also experience no change in the 
future—of that I am sure—when I prepare to fulfil wishes 
which have for a long time been cherished by the parties of 
the Left. .... Some years ago a Liberal professor said to 
me: ‘ How can you, Herr Chancellor, as an educated man, 
carry on agrarian policy?’ As if one could not be educated 
and still a thorough agrarian! When, however, I contemplate 
the reforms referred to, the economic programme which I have 
for seven years represented and carried out remains unim- 
paired—protection for national labour, protection for our 
production, and particularly protection and care for agriculture. 
I once told you that I regarded the name of agrarian as a title 
of honour, as a dignified distinction, and when the time comes 
for me to retire from public life all 1 would ask to be written 
on my political gravestone is, ‘He was an agrarian Chancellor.’”’ 

It is none the less inevitable that industrial and agricultural 
protection will stand or fall together. There are, undoubtedly, 
industries which could to-day do without Protection so long 
as imports were free all round, 2.¢., so long as the food duties, 


252 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


- which constitute so large a charge upon the consumers, and, 
incidentally, upon the cost of labour, were abolished. It is 
admitted, however, that free trade in corn would, under exist- 
ing circumstances, be a hazardous experiment, and there is no 
disposition to try it. 

At the same time it is a standing grievance of industry 
that the agrarians in general refuse to show an accommo:« 
dating spirit and to act on the principle of ‘* Live and let 
live.” Their claim still is that the lion’s share of the 
benefits which the State is able to confer upon the country by 
legislative and administrative measures shall fall to agriculture, 
and that the other interests of the nation shall be satisfied 
with the crumbs that remain. This claim was recently 
advanced by Dr. Oertel, in the name of the Agrarian League 
in the following candid fashion: ‘ Their first principle, even 
to-day, when the Liberal bourgeoisie had again become pre- 
sentable at court (hoffahiqg), must be, No sacrifice of agriculture, 
the first-born child. So must it remain till the year 2000 
and the year 8000! German agriculture will never again allow 
itself to be crushed, not even buried under rose-leaves. It 
intends to live.’ It has even been suggested seriously that 
means should be adopted for preventing the further expansion of 
industry. The President of the Agrarian League said, in 
March, 1907: ‘‘ German industry is now in the midst of so 
brilliant an era, and its resources and finance are so fully 
employed in all branches, that any further artificial expansion 
could only be disastrous. It is a question whether from the 
economic standpoint halt should not be called, in order to 
prevent an artificial over-production which would lead to a great 
catastrophe.’’ Probably the author of these words would hesi- 
tate, even if he were able, to put into definite and understandable 
terms the measures of restraint which, ‘‘from the economic 
standpoint,’ he would like to see applied to industry and trade, 
yet the underlying aim is plain—the transition of Germany from 
an agricultural to an industrial State is to be obstructed at every 
possible turn and by every possible device. 

In its defensive agitation the agrarian party receives powerful 
help from the Agrarian League, which has acquired such a 
position of strength in political life that it is able to exert a 
direct influence on Government policy and even to contribute 


AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY 253 


towards the rise and fall of Ministers of State. It is the 
achievement of the Agrarian League that it has created a solid 
phalanx of agricultural opinion and influence—a_ powerful 
country party which voices the undivided sentiment of the 
larger owners and peasants. Before its formation the agri- 
culturists voted with the Conservatives, and the great majority 
were Conservatives, as they still are to-day; yet while the 
domestic policy of that party has consistently been an agricul- 
tural policy, and in direct conflict with the special interests 
of industry and the towns, it had not in the past behind it 
the powerful support and impetus provided by a large and 
concentrated rural party, united by a single aim. Since 1892 
the Agrarian League may be said to have swallowed up Con- 
servatism, though nominally it constitutes a political group 
apart. For while the members of the League in the Prussian 
Diet and the Reichstag differ in their attitude upon the details 
ot the general Conservative programme, and may not always 
vote at the bidding of the official Conservative leaders on purely 
political questions, whenever an issue is brought to the front by 
the agrarians themselves, the whole body of Conservative members 
usually join hands with the League. This is partly owing to 
fear lest the League should entirely drift away from the recognised 
political moorings of Conservatism, partly because the League is led 
by men who, whether wise and practical or not in their demands, 
certainly know what they want and go straight for their set goal, 
but chiefly because, in the main, the Conservative party con- 
tinues still to be an agricultural party, in spite of the accession 
of a certain non-propertied element, which has never felt quite 
at home in its midst. 

So thoroughly have the League and its adherents become 
a class organisation that there have been occasions when 
members of the League threatened to work with any party 
whatsoever, whether Radical or Socialist, in the event of the 
Government’s refusal to satisfy their demands. When, on 
the other hand, they have supported the Government in critical 
situations, as on military or naval schemes, the agrarians have 
taken care to remind the Chancellor of the maxim of one of his 
predecessors, ‘‘ Do et des,” and to secure a fair equivalent. 

As to the power, vitality, and wealth of the League there can 
be no question. At its annual meeting in February, 1907, it 


254 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


was reported that the members numbered 282,000, of whom 89 
per cent. were said to be small owners and farmers, 10°5 per 
cent. owners and tenants of estates of medium size, and 0°5 
per cent. large proprietors. Some 60,000 were small agricul- 
turists who carried on a handicraft or a trade as a secondary 
calling, or artisans and tradespeople who followed agriculture 
as a secondary calling. It was stated that the League’s organ 
in the Press had a circulation of 184,000; that its 72 officials 
and speakers had addressed 8,718 meetings in all parts of the 
country during the year; and that its trading departments had a 
turnover of £341,500. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE SMALL HOLDINGS MOVEMENT 


Present extent of small holdings in Germany—Opinion of the East Prussian 
Land Commission—The creation of small holdings can only be at the 
expense of the great estates—The law of entail—The Prussian system of 
rent-fee farms—‘‘ Inner colonisation’’ by land companies—The creation 
of labourers’ holdings—The Prussian Minister of Agriculture’s pro- 
posals on the subject. 


HERE is in circles interested in the rehabilitation of rural 
life, and in the welfare of the dependent people who live on 
the land, a strong body of opinion favourable to the creation on 
an extensive scale of small peasants’ and labourers’ holdings and 
properties, as a means at once of checking the flow of population 
to the towns, of diminishing the labour difficulty, and incidentally 
of counteracting the paralysing effect of the great estates. 
Hitherto it has been tacitly assumed that any weakening ot 
the system of great estates in the North and East of Prussia 
would deprive the small farmers of the invaluable moral influence 
which is supposed to be exerted by their powerful manorial 
reighbours, would bring agriculture to a standstill, and would 
make local government impossible, and of all this the large land- 
owners themselves are even more convinced than the Govern- 
ment. Of late, however, the view has gained ground that 
a predominant system of large estates, absorbing economic and 
political influence and power, is not an unmixed good for the 
country, and this view has been supported by the proved ability 
of the small holders to withstand periods of agricultural depres- 
sion which have severely tried the corn-growing industry. The 
Government honestly desires to multiply these small holders, by 
way of equipoise ; its difficulty is how to create new estates even 


of the smallest size without unduly interfering with the old and 
255 


956 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


over-grown large ones. Many of the large proprietors are them- 
selves beginning to recognise that only by the creation of some 
system of small holdings will the acute labour problem be 
alleviated. 

Yet in taking up this question of small holdings, as it is doing 
in a serious spirit to-day, Germany is not by any means turning 
over a new leaf in its agricultural history. 

Happily for the nation, it already possesses a large race of 
small peasants who are able to keep abreast of the times, and to 
make a tolerable if not an affluent competency. The traditional 
home of the small peasantry is to be found in West and Central 
Germany, in Bavaria, and in the districts bordering on the 
North Sea. These peasants depend far more upon grazing than 
corn-growing, and for the most part they work their lands with 
the help of wife and children, and employ no labourers. 

Not only so, but the small holdings are steadily increasing in 
number and in aggregate area. Between 1882 and 1895 the 
farms under five acres increased from 3,061,831, forming 58 
per cent. of the whole as to number, to 3,236,367, forming 58°2 
per cent. The number of farms of from 5 to 124 acres numbered 
981,407 (186 per cent.) in 1882 and 1,016,818 (18°3 per 
cent.) in 1895; those of from 124 to 50 acres were 926,605 
(17°6 per cent.) in 1882 and 998,804 (18 per cent.) in 
1895; those of from 50 to 125 acres were 239,887 (4°5 per 
cent.) in 1882 and 239,648 (4°3 per cent.) in 1895; those of 
from 125 to 250 acres were 41,628 (0°8 per cent.) in 1882 and 
42,124 (0°7 per cent.) in 1895; those of from 250 to 1,250 acres 
were 20,847 (0°4 per cent.) in 1882 and 20,881 (0°4 per cent.) 
in 1895; and the properties exceeding 1,250 acres numbered 
4,144 (O'l per cent.) in 1882 and 4,180 (0°1 per cent.) in 1895. 
The total number of farms and estates, made up of arable land, 
meadow and pasture, garden land, and vineyard, was 5,276,344 
in 1882 and 5,558,317 in 1895. 

The farms of less than 5 acres comprised in the aggregate 
6,039,785 acres in 1895, against 5,898,393 acres in 1882; those 
of from 5 to 124 acres 10,858,177 acres (against 9,582,255 acres) ; 
those of from 123 to 50 acres 81,844,150 acres (against 
28,780,042 acres); those of from 50 to 125 acres 28,748,100 
acres (against 22,701,362 acres) ; those of from 125 to 250 acres 
9,244,858 acres (against 8,837,295 acres) ; those of from 250 to 


THE SMALL HOLDINGS MOVEMENT 257 


1,250 acres 16,427,760 acres (against 15,033,587 acres) ; those 
exceeding 1,250 acres 11,151,975 acres (against 10,563,815 
acres) ; making up a total area of 105,211,850 acres given up to 
agricultural holdings in 1895, against 100,446,702 acres in 1882. 

As to condition of tenure the farms fell into the following 
groups in 1895 :— 


Area. 
Number. Acres. 
In ownership of cultivator ... «oe 2,260,990 93,175,950 
Leasehold Sis yi ay vi 912,959 13,400,100 
Own property and leasehold combined 1,694,251 — 
Other forms of tenure (e.g.,metayage, 
service land, share of common 
land, &c.) ... aa a ves Nie La 1,635,800 


In the opinion of many high authorities upon the agrarian 
question the future prosperity of German agriculture will largely 
depend upon-the extent to which small farming is encouraged. 
It is a well-known fact that the most poignant cries of dis- 
tress come from those parts of Prussia which are given up to 
large manorial estates, and that the districts identified with 
small farming, and especially those which do not depend 
exclusively on corn-growing, are still in a prosperous condition. 
This applies in a high degree to the Western Provinces, like 
Rhineland and Westphalia, where the number of small proprietors 
and small leasehold farmers is exceptionally large. In some dis- 
tricts of the Rhineland it is estimated that at least a third of the 
entire area is held by leasehold tenants, who are willing and able 
to pay high rents, particularly in the neighbourhood of towns, 
where market gardening can be combined with grazing. 

In the adjoining province of Westphalia are found all forms 
of tenure and cultivation—large estates, similar to those in the 
East, though few in number, peasant holdings of various size, 
and a host of small ‘‘ parcels ’’—and in spite of the inroads made 
by industry town and country still develop satisfactorily side by 
side. ma, 

The Land Commission which has for twenty years worked the 
settlement scheme in the Polish districts of Eastern Prussia 
stated in a recent report :— 

‘The future of the great estates is threatened by the uncertainty 
of the supply of labour. Hence the assured form of agriculture 
to-day is that of the small and medium peasant with a property 
of from 25 to 50 acres. Dearth of labour does not affect him, and 

18 


=~ 


258 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


the sinking of corn prices does not hit him so directly or so 
severely, since he needs the greater part of his corn for his cattle. 
The fulcrum of his economy is cattle breeding, and that the more 
as the realisation of animal products becomes more remunerative ; 
here he has a great advantage over the large proprietor, owing to 
the better care and control which he is able to exercise. He 
has appropriated the technical improvements introduced on the 
great estates, his machinery is in no way inferior to theirs, nor 
is his manuring, thanks to his increased stock of cattle, while 
co-operative organisations have supplied him with easier credit 
and facilitated both the sale of his products and the purchase of 
his farm needs. Hence he is able to pay a higher price for his 
land than the large proprietor.”’ ——- 

The creation on any large scale of small holdings, however, 
can only take place at the expense of the great estates, and here, 
again, the whole weight of prejudice is against change. The 
large proprietors of the East of Prussia plead perpetual poverty, 
yet the last thing they are willing to admit is that their interests 
and the interests of the community would be served by the 
segregation of overgrown, unmanageable, and impoverished 
estates. Instead of making it easier to split up such estates the 
agrarians wish to make it still more difficult. Outlining the 
policy of the Agrarian League (March, 1907), the president of 
that organisation, Baron von Wangenheim, said :— 

‘* What is especially necessary is the absolute prohibition of the 
private division of estates without State control—in other words, 
every alteration of possession must receive the sanction of a 
local or provincial court and a State Board of Cultivation under 
the Minister of Agriculture. We do not wish to inflict losses 
on the State, but we hold it to be in the national interest that 
the State should expend a big handful of millions in the cause 


_of agriculture.” 


Already the large proprietors are protected by a severe entail 
law, though the great majority of the entailed estates are of 
comparatively recent date. The Prussian constitution of 1850 
expressly prohibited the creation of family entails, but a law of 
1852 restored the old right. The right was also extended about 
the same time to other parts of Germany in which it had been 
repealed during the application of the Code Napoleon, though it 
is still unpermissible in Oldenburg and Alsace-Lorraine. 


THE SMALL HOLDINGS MOVEMENT 259 


It is in Prussia, the home of agricultural distress and the 
agrarian movement, that the system of entail prevails to the 
greatest extent. At the end of 1905 there were in that State 
alone 1,165 entailed estates, with an aggregate area of 5,581,250 
acres, equal to 6°37 per cent. of the entire surface, against 6°09 
per cent. in 1895. Of this area 2,586,410 acres consisted of 
forest, equal to 12°5 per cent. of all the forest in the monarchy 
and 46 per cent. of all entailed land. The largest percentage 
of land entailed is in the province of Silesia, viz., 14 per cent., 
while in the provinces of East and West Prussia the pro- 
portion is under 4 per cent. In isolated districts of the 
monarchy the proportion is as high as 30 and 40 per cent., and 
in one administrative circle of Westphalia it reaches 52 per cent. 
For the most part the entailed estates are of great size. In 
Prussia it is required that in order to be entailed a property 
must have a minimum rent of £375. The result is that only 
the large proprietors can make use of the law. A return 
published a few years ago showed that 88°8 per cent. of the 
entailed land consisted of estates exceeding 2,500 acres in 
extent, and over 29 per cent. fell to estates exceeding 25,000 
acres. The 937 proprietors of these entailed estates owned 
some five and a half million acres of land and forest, or a 
million acres more than all the three and a quarter million smail 
proprietors with holdings of five acres or less. Many persons 
would like to see a system of peasant entail to counteract the 
effect of the large entailed estates of the manorial proprietors. 
Bavaria has had a law on the subject since 1855, but it has 
been little used. 

In one respect, at least, the law of entail has been a blessing 
to the country, in that it has helped to preserve the forests which 
form so valuable a part of Germany’s natural resources. In 
1905 one-eighth of all the forest land in Prussia was entailed, 
and nearly one-half of the entailed land in that State consisted 
_of forest. 

Already something has been done in Prussia to multiply the 
number of small holdings by the laws of 1890 and 1891 for the 
creation by means of State credit of rent-fee farms (Henten- 
giiter), a method suggested by the experience—rather than the 
success—gained by the ‘‘ settlement” of the Polish provinces 
with German farmers. By these laws the State may acquire 


260 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


land for division into small peasant properties, which are trans- 
ferred in return for an annual rent-charge fixed in money or in 
corn yet payable in money; part of the rent-charge is irredeem- 
able, so that the State retains an interest in the property. 
Such a property cannot be subdivided or in any way encumbered 
so that its economic independence is destroyed. The State 
acts through General Commissions and Rent Banks, advancing 
to the owners loans for the building of houses, &c., and the 
redeemable portion of the rent-charge is released by payments 
spread over 564 years. The holder is thus indebted to the 
State, and can count on more generous treatment than a private 
mortgagor generally allows. There are banks for the provinces 
of (1) East and West Prussia, (2) Brandenburg, (3) Pomerania 
and Schleswig-Holstein, (4) Posen, (5) Silesia, (6) Saxony and 
Hanover, (7) and Westphalia, Hesse Nassau, and Rhineland. 

Up to the end of 1905 the State had acquired in eleven 
provinces of the monarchy 1,315 estates with an area of 672,682 
acres, of which 818,920 acres had been parcelled out into 
10,963 properties of the following sizes: 899 under 6} acres, 
1,986 from 64 to 124 acres, 1,893 from 124 to 18? acres, 1,501 
from 18% to 25 acres, 3,684 from 25 to 624 acres, and 1,000 
over 624 acres. The valuation of the whole of the properties 
in that year was £5,084,800. More than half the land had 
been acquired and parcelled out in the two provinces of West 
Prussia and Pomerania. The later conditions which apply to 
these properties carefully guard against alienation, with a view 
to the checking of speculation and the fulfilment of the objects 
of the law. Thus without the consent of the General Commis- 
sion no property can be even partially sold or disposed of to a 
relative, even though the widow of the owner. 

Here, again, the doctrinaire Radicals object to the rent-fee 
farms as an infraction of the sacred principle of freedom of trade, 
because the owner is not permitted to dispose as he will of a 
property which is not his until he has paid for it outright and 
which he voluntarily acquires with a full knowledge of the 
restrictions. Certainly it has proved a disadvantage here, as in 
the case of the so-called colonisation of the Polish provinces, 
that public money when invested in land does not seem to go so 
far as private money, for the State both buys and sells worse 
than private individuals would either dare or care to do.“ The 


v THE SMALL HOLDINGS MOVEMENT 261 
knowledge that the State is in the market has a wonderfully 
stimulating effect upon land values, and often estates which have 
long been a care to their owners acquire values never before 
suspected directly the Land Commission makes overtures as a 
possible purchaser. 

-“~s A scheme of ‘inner colonisation’? on the lines of the 
settlement of East and West Prussia is also being carried on 
by land companies in the first of these two provinces and in 
Pomerania. The main purpose is to settle small farmers and 
labourers on land hitherto in German hands with a view to 
strengthening Germanism and keeping out Polish influence. 
Though the State does not direct, it advances money at low 
interest to settlement companies, not working for a profit, which 
buy eligible land and parcel it out into holdings of convenient 
size. The inventory of an average settler with a holding of 
100 acres consisted in 1906 of five horses, two foals, 28 head of 
cattle, 28 pigs, 40 geese, and 40 hens. He harvested 400 cwts. 
of rye, 100 ewts. of barley, 150 cwts. of oats, 2,000 cwts. of 
beets, and 600 ewts. of potatoes. The price of rye ranged 
from 7s. to 7s. 6d. per cwt., of brewing barley 8s. to 8s. 6d., of 
oats 7s. 6d. to 8s., and of beets 1s. per cwt. The yield of rye 
that year was about 8 cwts. per acre. 

The agrarians are not unwilling, subject to guarantees, to see 
the number of small farmers increased, but they are not enthu- 
siastic about the idea of providing labourers with holdings. In 
the interest of the former they would like the State to extend to 
the monarchy generally the system of colonisation partially 
applied in the Polish provinces. They accordingly introduced 

in 1902 a Bill authorising the Government to set apart £600,000 
as a first fund out of which to buy land with a view to creating 
farms of moderate size. The scheme was to be worked sepa- 
rately in all the provinces by boards formed of Government 
officials and representatives of the Chambers of Agriculture. 
It was assumed that the price of the land would average £20 
per acre, and that the fund would circulate seven times in 
twenty-one years, so that during that time some 210,000 acres 
of land would have been bought and divided into properties. 
The Government did not favourably receive the proposal and it 
fell through. There were not wanting critics who, rightly or 
wrongly, saw in the scheme only an endeavour to establish con- 


262 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


venient facilities for enabling encumbered landowners to dispose 
of their estates to a generous buyer. The proposed constitution 
of the Settlement Board would certainly have ensured that the 
small owners to be created would be of a type and character 
pleasing to the surrounding large landowners. 

Nevertheless, the settlement of the labourer on the land is a 
question which seriously exercises the Prussian Government, 
and the present Minister of Agriculture has pledged himself to 
action. ‘* The State,” said Herr von Arnim, on February 7, 
1907, ‘‘ has a high interest in having as large a number of 
sound holdings as possible. By that I do not mean to say that 
the large estates are not necessary in many districts. Any one 
who knows Prussian history and the part which the great 
proprietors have played in the past, and who knows that 
communal self-government is impossible without the large 
landowners, who form the bulwark of agricultural progress, 
and that high technical development in agriculture is almost 
solely due to them, will be in no doubt on that point. It is, 
however, indubitable that while in some districts there are too 
few large estates, in others there are too many. The agri- 
culturists,”’ he proceeded, ‘‘ must take up this question with 
all energy, though hitherto I have unfortunately seen little 
inclination on their part. It is feared that the settlers would go 
to the neighbouring towns to work, and, eventually, would simply 
fall on the poor funds. That might be the case under certain 
circumstances, but not under all. I therefore regard it as short- 
sighted not to make use of this means—whose systematic 
application would be more effective than any other—of relieving 
the scarcity of labour. The foreign supplies of labour, upon 
which we have hitherto drawn, are no longer in a position to 
cover our needs, and they will still be less able in the future, 
while they may fail us at any moment. Let us, therefore, 
prepare betimes before it is too late.”’ 

And again, five days later: ‘‘ The settlement of agricultural 
labourers on the land is a work of great socio-political import- 
ance, and is a means of bridging the gulf between capitalistic 
industry and the industrial worker. The experience we have 
had hitherto with the settlement of agricultural labourers has — 
been extraordinarily satisfactory. Not only settlement com- 
panies but private persons have successfully worked in this 


THE SMALL HOLDINGS MOVEMENT 263 


direction. The expense of settlement is, as a rule, heavy, yet 
when the labourer is helped by his wife and children he is able 
to raise the high rent which is necessary in order to cover the 
costs. Let us take care, however, that we do not place the 
settler in a dependent position. Only when he is a free man 
will he work willingly.” hag 

The main lines upon which the Prussian Government proposes 
to deal with this question were laid down in an Order issued in 
January, 1907, by the Ministers of Agriculture and Finance 
jointly, intended to facilitate the application of the law regarding 
rent-fee farms to agricultural and industrial labourers. It is 
hoped that agricultural labourers especially may be settled on 
the land in large numbers, with a view to alleviating the labour 
scarcity, and in their case the provisions of the law are to be 
used to the utmost. The Order sanctioned the reduction of 
the minimum area of a small holding under the rent-fee farm 
law of 1891 to about 124 ares, or a third of an acre. Such 
labourers’ holdings are not to be created in colonies, and so 
far as industrial labourers are concerned there must be proof that 
where holdings are desired there exists a prospect of permanent 
work, so that there may be no fear of the holdings having to change 
hands. In order that a labourer may have a definite interest 
in his holding he is to be required either to leave an annual 
rent or mortgage charge on his land, irredeemable for at least 
ten years, or to provide surety for the payment of the rent- 
charge for from ten to fifteen years, Moreover, it is expected 
that a small holder will pay down from one-tenth to one-eighth 
of the purchase money. 

In general, small holdings can only be created through the 
Land Banks, by communal unions, by co-operative societies, 
or the public utility associations, though employers desirous of 
providing their workpeople with ‘‘ hearth and land” of their 
own, and other private persons under suitable conditions, will 
be allowed to take advantage of the law. As to the dwellings 
to be built upon these small holdings, it is provided that at least 
from 85 to 90 per cent. of the land must be unbuilt upon, and 
that only one-family houses of two stories at the most, to- 
gether with the necessary farm buildings, may be erected. For 
the protection of Germanism it is required that in ‘‘ the nation- 
ally-threatened districts’ of the East and West of the 


964 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


kingdom (t.e., the Polish and Danish enclaves) the owners 
of holdings shall bind themselves to ensure the retention of 
the land in German hands, and, under certain circumstances, 
the State is to be able to exercise a right of re-purchase at 
a price which is never to exceed 90 per cent. of the market 
value of the holding. 

For the carrying out of this scheme it bas been proposed to 
set apart a portion of fiscal land in every Government district 
for the creation of labourers’ holdings—fifteen to twenty in each 
district—the purchase price being £275, £75 for land and £200 
for buildings, payable in instalments spread over sixty years. 
The great objection to the creation of such holdings is that 
they cannot by any possibility do more than keep a family © 
in vegetables and goats’ milk, and must be regarded as allot- 
ments to be cultivated in spare time. Moreover, the constant 
complaint of the agricultural labourer is that at present, owing 
to his endless duties, he has no spare time. Hence the work 
on his patch of a third of an acre of land will either mean 
over-exertion, or it will have to fall on his wife and children, 
and in any case he will need to earn his livelihood as before 
as a farm worker. 


CHAPTER XIV 
THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 


Extent of rural migration—The ‘‘land-flight” of the labourer and its 
causes—the effect of machinery inincreasing seasonal labour—Conditions 
of rural life—Housing and wages of the agricultural labourer—Rural 
migration and poverty: a statistical comparison—Methods of remunera- 
tion—Payment in kind, and examples of wages agreements— The spirit 
of feudalism still perpetuated in North and East Prussia—Baron vom 
Stein’s laws against serfdom—-How the effect of the Edict of Emancipa- 
tion was weakened—The ‘Servants’ Ordinances’’—Inability of the 
agricultural labourer to combine or strike—Breach of contract by 
agricultural labourers—Modern social legislation has ignored the rural 
labourer—A Prussian landowner’s opinion of lost opportunities—The 
system of semi-bound labour doomed—Proposed remedies for the ‘‘ land- 
flight ’’—The importation of foreign labour—Absence of organisation in 
rural districts—The unpopularity of Socialism amongst agricultural 
labourers. 


N the whole Empire there were in December, 1900, 823,597 
foreigners in a population of 56,367,178, representing the 
proportion of 1°4 per cent., while at the census of 1890 there 
were 433,254 foreigners in a population of 49,428,000, repre- 
senting the proportion of only 0°87 per cent. It hus been 
estimated that at least 300,000 migratory foreigners are 
employed in summer as labourers in the agricultural districts of 
the country. Prussia alone had in December, 1905, 524,874 
resident foreigners, equal to 1°4 per cent. of its total population 
(86,767,202), and over 300,000 of these foreigners came from 
Austria, Hungary, and Russia, some 60 per cent. of them being 
males.* Yet in 1895 Prussia had only 205,818 foreigners and 
in 1885 156,970. The number has increased during twenty 
years from 5°5 to 14°1 per 1,000 of the population. 


* The census of the United Kingdom in 1901 showed a population of 
38,104,975, of whom 198,113, or 0°52 per cent.. were foreigners. 
265 


266 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


These striking figures point to one of the most serious prob- 
lems by which agriculture, and particularly the agriculture of 
Prussia, is confronted, viz., the persistent dearth of native 
labour and, in recent years, labour of any kind. One of the 
phrases most commonly on the lips of agricultural writers, and 
most constantly recurring in the agricultural debates which 
occupy so large a part of the attention of the Prussian Diet, 
is ‘‘ the land-flight (Landflucht) of the labourer.’’ Any explana- 
tion of the reasons of the remarkable migration from the rural 
districts which has occurred during the past ten or twelve 
years brings us face to face with some of the underlying 
conditions of Prussian agriculture which are at once the mis- 
fortune of the country and the despair of the true agricultural 
reformer. 

‘‘ We understand by the term ‘movement from the country,’ 
or, as it is also called, ‘ land-flight,’’’ writes Sohnrey, ‘‘ not 
merely the natural movement of population which bears the 
superfluous surplus of rural strength to the towns, but the 
unnatural precipitation of that movement, which more and more 
depopulates the country and overpopulates the towns.” 

But the movement can only be regarded as an ‘‘ unnatural ” 
one because the causes which have produced it are also, in part, 
‘‘unnatural.”’ What we see, in fact, is the wholesale with- 
drawal from the rural districts of those who have immemorially 
been the mainstay of agriculture. The townward movement 
is specially strong in the Polish provinces and the backward 
North of Prussia, where it amounts to an absolute calamity 
both for the large proprietors and the farmers who need one 
or two hands for the most part of the year. 

How great is the migration from the Polish provinces in 
particular will appear from proofs easy to apply. It is 
required that workmen insured against old age and invalidity 
shall return their receipt cards to the places where they were 
first issued, wherever they may be at the time. There is thus 
a constant exchange of cards between the Central Boards ot 
the Empire. In 1907 the returns of the Board for Posen showed 
that 65,003 persons more had left the district than had arrived, 
and in 1906 the excess was 74,101, making 139,104 for two 
years. In 1906 15,642 more persons went to Berlin than 
came thence; the excess of removals to the Rhine Province 


THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 267 


was 9,339, and the excess of removals to Westphalia was 
8,405. The majority of the migrated Poles had been engaged in 
agriculture, but had turned to industry ; only a small minority 
had been domestic servants; of those who returned to the 
province of Posen a large part were elderly persons. 

Statistics prepared by the Government of the province of 
East Prussia, with the aid of the elementary school teachers, 
showed that during the year 1905-6 over 2,400 families left 
that province, most of them going to the West of the kingdom, 
and few going abroad. It was found that almost half the 
recruits called up from the rural districts did not return to their 
former agricultural employment.* The migratory spirit would 
appear to infect girls hardly less than young men. Dr. Binder- 
wald, who investigated the movement of population from the 
Saal district, found that of 4,575 girls who were born in that 
district between the years 1884 and 1888 no less than 3,006, or 
66 per cent., had in 1904 left agriculture and migrated to the 
towns, there taking work as factory operatives, domestic ser- 
vants, sempstresses, laundry workers, saleswomen, &c.t 

Further, if the statistics of oversea emigration are examined 
it is found that a far larger ratio to population falls to the agri- 
cultural States and the agricultural provinces of the same 
States than to the industrial States and districts. Thus the 
emigrants of German nationality who left Prussia in 1906 were 
48 per 100,000 of the population, and in Saxony the ratio was 
38 per 100,000, but in Bavaria the ratio was 53, in Baden 52, 
and in Wurtemberg 58. Again, while the ratio of emigrants in 
the industrial provinces of Prussia was 42 per 100,000 of the 
population in Westphalia, 26 in Rhineland, and 33 in Hesse- 
Nassau, it was 107 in agricultural West Prussia, 181 in Posen, 
and 82 in Schleswig-Holstein. 

All sorts of reasons have been advanced by the agricultural 
party and its spokesmen in the Press for the depopulation 
of the country districts, on the one hand by unreasoning advocates 
who see in the action of the labourer only a proof of perversity, 
and on the other by serious men who recognise that if there is 
a landowner’s side to the question there is as surely a labourer’s 


* Debate in the Reichstag, February 12, 1907. 
+ ‘‘Sesshaftigkeit und Abwanderung der weiblichen Jugend vom Lande’? 
Berlin, 1905). 


968 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


side as well. As an illustration of the too easy, superficial 
method of explaining the land-flight of the labourer, the following 
passage may be quoted from an agrarian organ :— 

“An evil spirit stalks chronet the land, taking the form of 
disobedience, of resistance, of the emancipation of all the lower 
instincts. Our youth is specially possessed by this spirit, which 
is like a devastating pestilence. The symptoms of the malady 
which has seized hold of our youth point clearly to the proper 
remedy. We are suffering from a pestilence of education, and it 
is inoculated in the school, and through the school it poisons 
the juvenile mind and body. The consequences are seen in 
the flight from the country, in the fear of physical work, in 
effeminacy, and in superficiality.”’ 

The same frame of mind was reflected by a large Silesian 
landed proprietor who said at a recent congress of agrarians: 
‘* The children learn too much to-day, and the result is that we 
can no longer get labourers.’’ ‘To many persons it will seem 
that sentiments like these may go far towards explaining the evil 
of which their authors complain, yet while a certain significance 
cannot be withheld from them they fail to do justice to the land- 
_Owners’ difficulty. 

~~ One of the most important factors in the case is the large 
“extent to which the permanent labourer, engaged all the year 
round, has been replaced by the seasonal labourer, owing to the 
increasing use of machinery of various kinds—in ploughing, 
sowing, reaping—so that work which formerly occupied weeks 
can now, when the time comes round, be done in an equal num- 
ber of days. The result is that a much smaller number of men 
is needed during the greater part of the year, and the farmer 
naturally restricts his supply to the indispensable number 
required in winter, trusting for the rest to seasonal labour. The 
displaced settled labourer tried the lot of the seasonal worker for 
a time, picking up odds and ends of a penurious livelihood in the 
off-seasons as best he might, until the life became too precarious 
and he tired of it. The more the use of machinery has in- 
creased, in fact, the stronger has become the movement to the 
towns. Hence it is the largest estates, best able to employ 
mechanical appliances advantageously, which ‘in the busy 
seasons of the year suffer most from the land-flight of native 
labour. 


THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 269 


Herr Evert, writing from the landowners’ standpoint, and 
speaking specially of the Kast of Prussia, says :— 

‘*In consequence of the unfavourable climate it is impossible 
to distribute the necessary operations of agriculture in the East 
so equally throughout the year as in the West. In the short 
summer, when so much has to be done, the agriculturist requires 
a comparatively large number of labourers, horses, and other 
stock, in the short winter fewer. As to his draught horses, he 
can to some extent remedy matters by the reduction of the 
forage rations, but he cannot do this in the case of labour. 
What can he do? Of every undertaker, whether he be a farmer 
or a manufacturer, it is primarily to be expected that he shall 
work economically, otherwise he is not in his right place. But 
the farmer who permanently keeps more labourers than he can 
employ does not so work. So long as the power-worked thrasher 
was unknown, weaving for home use and the thrashing-floor 
afforded the farm labourer ample employment in winter. But in 
this domain, as in others, technical progress has created social — 
evils. An employer cannot be expected to renounce the advan- 
tages of the machine-thrasher in order to keep his labourers 
in regular employment. Certainly he acts more according to 
economic principles if he keeps permanently, in yearly contract, 
only so many labourers as he can fairly employ in winter, and for 
the rest trusts in summer to seasonal labour. Hence the much- 
lamented land-flight in the East is by no means due alone to 
the farm labourer’s hope of attaining better or pleasanter con- 
ditions of life by migrating to the town; it is also due to a 
certain extent to the revolution in the conditions of production 
which compels the farmer to reduce the number of his permanent 
labourers, in so far as they cannot be employed in winter in 
forest work, road-making, and other improvements, &c. However 
disagreeable rural seasonal work may be from the social stand- 
point, from the economic standpoint it is for the individual farmer 
to some extent a necessary evil.”’ * 

But here the question is not exhausted. The modernising of 
the methods of cultivation explains why the large estates cannot 
employ so much labour all the year round as formerly, it also 
gives a good reason why those labourers who are only offered 
seasonal employment do not choose to remain on the land, but it 

* «¢Der deutsche Osten,’’ pp. 7, 8. 


“ 


\ 


270 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


does not explain why there is a dearth of labour at all times 
of the year. And the causes which have produced this larger 
problem, which is far more serious than that of seasonal scarcity 
—which can be remedied by the importation of labour from 
Russia, Austria, and Galicia—may well be summarised in one, 
viz., the unhappy conditions under which the agricultural 
labourers are still compelled to live in most parts of the rural 
North and East. Low wages, poor dwellings, social ostracism, 
an almost feudal relationship towards his employer, the depriva- 
tion of all the civil rights which have been conferred upon the 
urban working classes—in these signs of his inferiority as a man 
and a citizen lies the explanation of the agricultural labourer’s 
unwillingness to remain in the country and of his migration to 
the industrial districts of the West in increasing numbers, 
insomuch that in the Westphalian coal-mines there are to be 
found tens of thousands of Poles who have during the past few 
years abandoned their native provinces in the East. In 1905 
no less than 33°7 per cent. of all the miners in the Dortmund 
district were Poles and East Prussians, though the percentage 
in 1898 was only 24°9. In Rhineland and Westphalia together 
there were in 1906 no fewer than 97,000 industrial workpeople 
who had migrated from the East of Prussia. To use a 
catch-phrase which has latterly become current, and which fairly 
describes the problem, ‘‘ the need of labourers is attributable to 
the labourers’ need.”’ Everything that makes life worth living, 
that adds dignity to labour, that gives men self-respect and hope, 
is withheld from the great mass of the labourers who work the 
large estates of the East Elbe proprietors. 

There is no need to accumulate evidence as to the inferiority 
of housing conditions in rural districts. A prominent agrarian, 
Baron von Manteuffel, on a recent occasion sought to induce the 
Government to make the right of agricultural labourers to migrate 
to the towns dependent on proof that they had healthy homes 
to go to there. The argument proceeded from the assumption 
that rural houses are better than urban, which is far from 
being the case, so far as the large towns are concerned, 
though the rents of urban dwellings are, of course, very 
much higher. The publications of the public health department 
of the Prussian Ministry of Education and Public Worship speak 
of unhealthy rural dwellings in most parts of the monarchy—of 


THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 271 


insufficient space, dilapidated buildings, of darkness, damp, and 
decay, of unwholesome drainage and water supply, and living- 
rooms and pigstyes in immediate conjunction. One of the 
strongest reasons for this state of things is undoubtedly the fact 
that the dwelling is frequently part of the labourer’s wages. 

As to wages, throughout the whole of the second half of last 
century these gradually increased. A writer in the ‘‘ Preussische 
Jahrbiicher ’’ recently published the following comparative returns 
of the yearly wages which were paid between 1853 and 1893 on 
an estate in the neighbourhood of a large Rhenish town, food 
and lodging being given additional :— 






£-(Gscud. 
First hind... 56 6 0 
Third hind . 9 3 0 |1010 Q 
Labourer 8 0 0 15 0 0 
First maid ... 710 0 9 3 0 


It should be borne in mind, however, that these rates refer to 
one of the most progressive parts of Prussia, where large estates 
are rare. During the past decade there has been further steady 
improvement, yet the rate of progress is not believed to have 
kept pace with the higher cost of living, and it is quite certain 
that it has not sensibly improved the labourer’s material position 
or broadened his social outlook. 

— That it is largely poverty which drives the labourers from the 
country to the towns is a fact which has never been seriously 
contested, and a study of the Prussian Government’s returns 
of internal migration in conjunction with those of incomes of 
persons liable to State income tax points to conclusions the 
significance of which cannot be gainsaid. It is true that only 
incomes exceeding £45 per annum are included in the latter 
returns (since incomes below that figure are exempted from 
taxation), so that the proportion of the entire population covered 
is little more than a third, but as these incomes are family 
incomes and include not only money wages, but all payments in 
kind—house, land, wheat, seed, potatoes, flax, &c.—it follows 
that a very considerable number of agricultural labourers will be 
scheduled. The broad result of such a comparison between | 


272 TdE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


wealth and movement of population is that districts with the 
highest proportion of taxable incomes have the largest amount 
of immigration, and conversely that where the taxable por- 
tion of the population is smallest there is most migration, so 
that in some of the poorer districts rapid depletion is taking 
place. 

The difference between West and East is very striking. On 
the average of the years 1899 to 1903 163 per thousand of the 
population of the Diisseldorf Government district were assessed 
to State income tax as having incomes exceeding £45, and 
during the years 1895 to 1900 the excess of immigration over 
migration outwards was 8'0 per cent. The corresponding figures 
for Cologne were 127 per 1,000 and + 4°4 per cent.; for 
Hanover 120 per 1,000 and + 2°5 per cent.; and for Miinster 
115 per 1,000 and +77 per cent. On the other hand, all 
the 24 Government districts (out of a total of 87) with less than © 
100 inhabitants per 1,000 of the population liable to income 
tax showed an excess of migration over immigration, and 
nearly all these were districts in the East or North-East of the 
kingdom. Of the latter the most notable instances were the 
following :— 


; No. of Inhabitants Decrease of Population 
Government District. per 1,000 liable to owing to Migration, 
Income Tax. 1895-1900, 





Per cent. 

Allenstein 7 ae we 36°8 11:4 
Marienwerder ... ie Fyfe 43°5 73 
Posen... ded Ares Pe 44°4 79 
Gumbinnen iPr tile re 45°3 6:9 
Bromberg a ek aot 49°2 5°4 
Késlin® ... We Ss Set 49°3 6:4 
3°2 


Aurich ... Sy dee Me | 84°5 





The correspondence is so general as to establish the rule that 
relative poverty implies a relatively high degree of migration. 
The same result is arrived at when we compare the migration 
of the population in relation to the official standard rate of day 
wages, 7.¢., the ‘‘ customary day wages of the locality,” as fixed 
under the Insurance Laws by the higher administrative authorities 
in conjunction with the communal authorities. These rates are 


THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 273 


as a rule somewhat below the wages actually paid, yet they 
afford a valuable standard of comparison between the different 
parts of a country or a province. Here, again, it is found that 
where the rate of day wages is highest there is as a rule more 
immigration than migration and vice versd. How the rule works 
is shown by the following table :-— 


Increase or Decrease of 








rage Day Wages : : 
Aes ‘Adulte 1901 P is Te th to 
Government District. is j 
Marks. 1895-1900. 1900-1905. 
(a) West. Per cent. Per cent 
Diisseldorf ‘ she asd 1°99 + 80 +41 
Arnsberg abe ap 1:97 + 9:0 +1:2 
Miinster... pti Spe Jas 1°81 + 7 + 56 
Cologne ... ant ee oe 1:71 + 4-4 + 3°1 
(b) Hast. 
Gumbinnen ... at A 1:04 — 69 — 5°0 
Allenstein bee ies wee 1:09 — 11:4 — 53 
Posen... 3 ies ay 1:16 — 79 — 4°6 
Marienwerder ... ais ot 1:23 — 73 — 57 
Bromberg es tre uae 1:26 — 54 — 53 


The ‘‘Jahrbiicher fiir Nationalokonomie und Statistik” 
published an analysis of returns of agricultural wages (money 
only, without payment in kind) collected in 1905 by admini- 
strative authorities in all parts of the Empire. The wages were 
found to fall into five groups :— 


1st Group yy Aa. £15 to £21 per annum 
2nd Group ey ae £21 to £27 ¢s 


3rd Group oY a £27 to £33 te 
4th Group ae eal £33 to £39 ee 
5th Group oie a £39 to £45 ae 


It was found that wages of the first class were paid in 31°18 per 
cent. of the area covered by the returns, wages of the second class 
in 41°81 per cent., wages of the third class in 24°43 per cent., 
wages of the fourth class in 2°49 per cent., and wages of the 
fifth class in 0°14 per cent.; so that wages of between £15 and 
£27 (roughly from 6s. to 10s. per week) were paid in nearly 
three-quarters of the entire area covered by the returns. The 
lowest rates fell to the agricultural provinces of Prussia and 


Bavaria, and especially to East aid West Prussia, Posen, 
19 


274. THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Silesia, the Upper Palatinate, and Upper and Middle Franconia. 
The lowest rates of wages were not paid at all in the Prussian 
provinces of Saxony, Hesse-Nassau, Schleswig-Holstein, and 
Rhineland, where there is either industry or progressive agri- 
culture, nor yet in the Kingdoms of Saxony and Wurtemberg. 

The highest rates were paid in certain districts of Branden- 
burg, Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Westphalia, Rhineland” 
(Prussia), in Upper Bavaria, the Kingdom of Saxony, Wurtem- 
berg, and Hesse. It was also found that the wages were higher 
in districts in which estates of medium size predominated than - 
in those in which large and small estates predominated. , 

As between the various parts of Prussia there is considerable 
difference in the level of wages. While the highest rates are 
paid in the West, in the neighbourhood of the industrial districts 
and in the home of small farming, wages are lowest in the North 
and East, between which there is little to choose, although the 
labourers are of different race, those of the East being for the 
most part Poles, while those in the North are of the patient, 
stolid, much-enduring Low German stock. 

The ‘‘ Reformblatt fur Arbeiterversicherung”’ published in 
1907 the following analysis of money wages paid to adult agri- 
cultural and forest labourers in various administrative circles of 
the province of East Prussia :— 





Males. -Females. 
No. of Yearly Money | No. of Yearly Money 
Circles. Wages. Circles. Wages. 
©. Bs ids Lh. ae 
14 18 0 0 1 10 0 0 
rt 18 15 0 11 10 10 O 
5 19 10 0 1 Ls De 
5 20 0 0 10 12 0 0 
1 20 10 O 2 12 10 O 
1 21 0 0 1 13 0 0 
1 22 0 0 4 13 10 0 
4 22 10 O 4 15 0 0 
2 25 0 0 i 1600 
1 22 10 0 


In all the cases given above payment in kind was supple- 
mentary to the money wages, and the labourer’s actual position 


THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 275 


can only be understood when the full terms of his contract of 
Service are considered. Generally a small cottage, worth at 
_ the local value 1s. or 1s. 6d. per week, is part of the wages, and 
_ frequently a plot of land for potatoes, a certain quantity of food 
corn, bread, or vegetables, with wood or turf for fuel, and some- 
times pasturage for a goat, a sheep, or even a cow are added. 

The value of these various payments in kind (‘‘ Naturalen’’), 

—~ differs in every individual case. The Deutsche Zeitung (the 
organ of the Agrarian League) recently published the follow- 
ing as the wages and perquisites of the average Pomeranian 
labourer: Money wages, £11 10s. per annum with a bonus 
(conditionally) of £1 10s.; a dwelling-house, 28 cwts. of corn, 
50 cwts. of potatoes, about 3 quarts of skimmed milk daily, 
and 40 cwts. of briquettes. The total annual value would in 
normal times be as follows: Money, £13; rent (at 1s. 6d. 
weekly), £3 18s.; corn (at 7s. per cwt. wholesale), £9 16s. ; 
potatoes (at 2s. per cwt. wholesale), £5; milk (1,095 quarts 
at 1d.), £4 11s. 3d.; briquettes (at 1s. per cwt.), £2; total, 
£38 5s. 3d. ; equal to 14s. 8d. per week. This must be regarded 
as an outside estimate, however, and cannot be taken as repre- 

_ sentative of Prussian estates generally. 

A glance at specimen contracts of service customary in the 
East will give the best idea of the value of the labourer’s services 
and of the sort of life he leads. 

The basis of the organisation of agricultural labour which 
still continues in that part of Germany is the Jnstmann, who 
is a sort of master labourer. He engages himself by the year 
to the lord of the manor, and is paid partly in money and partly 
in kind. As arule his wife and children render service either 
regularly or at special seasons, and frequently he has labourers 
under him. These men he engages on his own terms, and for 
their board and lodging he is responsible, while the landlord 
pays him for their labour according to a fixed rate which is set 
down in his own contract of service. 

A wages contract relating to the province of Kast Prussia, and 
concluded in 1906, runs as follows :— 

‘‘ The labourer receives free dwelling, 6 cubic metres of wood 
for fuel, half an | English] acre of land for potatoes, forage for 
two or three goats, and straw. He receives per day from 
October 1 to April 1, 1 mark (1s.), and from April 1 until mowing 


276 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


time, 1 mark 25 pfennige (1s. 8d.), and from then to October 1, 
1 mark 50 pfennige (1s. 6d.). His wife receives 50 pfennige 
(6d.) per day all the year round. For thrashing with the flail 
the labourer receives the 14th bushel.”’ 

The wages, both in money and kind, of this labourer, who had 
six children, may probably be estimated at £24 per annum; the 
money wages alone (806 days—152 at 1s., 75 at 1s. 3d., and 79 
at 1s. 6d.), work out to 7s. per week. 

The following is another contract relating likewise to East 
Prussia (the money is here converted into the nearest English 
equivalents) :— 

‘‘The working day is 14 hours, with intervals of 8 hours 
fixed by the factor. 

**(1) Except at harvest time the daily rates of wages are :— 


s. d. 
Men who can mow, from April 1 to the 
end of the potato harvest .... » = atl ae 
Ditto, after the potato harvest ... ae Wyck: 
Young men over 18 years who can manage 
horses and oxen ae Ss nivel Ra 
Women and girls over 18 years... ost yon 
Young men and girls under 18 years ... O 94 
‘*(2) During the corn harvest (4 to 6 
weeks )— 
Men bes is a ot is asin 
Women and young men and girls over 18 
VOAFe oe ne. Pinca on sis sed i eee 
Young men and girls under 18 years ... 1 O 


**(3) For overtime men receive 13d. per hour, and all other 
labourers 14d. 

‘¢(4) Payments in kind additional—Dwelling-house consist- 
ing of bedroom with straw sack and cover, and a common 
kitchen, and for every labourer weekly 34 litres (3 quarts) of 
skimmed milk, 22 lb. of potatoes, 8# Ib. of bread, 1 Ib. 11 ounces 
of flour, 17 ounces of peas, 17 ounces of rice, 17 ounces of meat 
(or 74d.), 17 ounces of fat (or 6d.), and 9 ounces of salt.” 

The aggregate money value would here be about £31 10s. 

In the following recent contract, which relates to the province 
of West Prussia, the Jnstmann is specially mentioned :— 


THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 277 


** The Instmann is required to work from April 1 to October 1 
from sunrise to sunset, and during the rest of the year from light 
to dark. His wife is required to work from April 1 to the end of 
the harvest every afternoon for 8d. per day, and must be ready 
at any other time to engage in house work from early morning 
at 6d. per day. 

‘* During harvest the labourer is expected to work on Sundays 
and holidays when required. 

“* The wages of the Instmann are :— 

** Free house, 90 square roods of garden land, and 185 square 
roods of potato land in the field. 

‘* Food for every 30 work days as follows: 88 Ib. rye, 24 lb. 
peas, and 19 Ib. barley. 

*‘ Five cords of turf or 85 cwts. of coal, and 2 cubic metres of 
wood for fuel, subject to a payment of 1s. 6d. per 5 cords of turf 
or 7 cwts. of coal for getting the same. 

“In money wages—F'rom Martinmas until April 1, 34d. per 
day ; from April 1 to June 1, 43d. ; from June 1 to September 1, 
6d. ; and September 1 to Martinmas, 34d. 

“The ploughman receives from Martinmas to April 84d. ; 
from April 1 to September 1, 4$d.; and from September 1 to 
Martinmas, 34d.”’ 

In this case the Instmann had to pay 3s. for pasturage for a 
cow, ls. for a pig, and 6d. each for young pigs, also 6 young 
pullets yearly by way of heriot. His money wages were about 
£6 per annum, but so small a payment is exceptional. 

Some wages contracts provide for the labourer living in his 
own dwelling and finding his own food. The following is an 
example (the values are converted) :— 

‘‘The employer or his agent determines which work shall be 
performed on piece or time rates. The rates of pay are as 
follows :—(1) Day wages with full board and lodging—For 
the husband 1s. 1}d., and at harvest 1s. 34d. ; for the wife 
10d. and 1s. respectively. Day wages, without board and 
lodging—For the man 1s. 74d. and for the wife 1s.14d. In 
addition 25 lb. of potatoes are given per head weekly and 
12 pints of skimmed milk daily. The employer fixes the 
time for beginning and ending work. In every case 365s. 
shall be deducted from the wages and shall only be returned 
on the determination of service. In the event of discharge 


978 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


owing to unpunctuality, insubordination, drunkenness, or other 
irregular conduct this money shall be withheld.” 

The following contract was communicated by a Pomeranian 
landowner to a Berlin newspaper in January, 1907, in refuta- 
tion of certain criticisms which had been passed upon labour 
conditions on his estate :— 

‘** Money wages for the labourer of £11 10s. per annum, also 
6d. for every cartload of corn led to town. 

‘‘ Wages of two children, 14 and 16 years respectively, 6d. 
and 74d. per day, and of an older youth 1s. 

‘* Free dwelling, consisting of one living room, one bedroom, 
and a small kitchen, a loft and a garden. 

‘* Stabling for two pigs, two goats, and ten hens. 

‘* One Magdeburg acre or 60 square roods of potatoes. 

‘* 28 cwts. of wheat, rye, &c.,and grazing and hay for two goats. 

‘¢ 54 pints of milk per day. 

** Free cartage of fuel, and 40 ewts. of briquettes. 

‘* Free medical attendance and medicine for the labourer and 
his family. 

‘* Work begins at 4 a.m. with the feeding of the horses.” 

It will be safe to place the money value of the wages and 
allowances of the man alone at £36 per annum, or 14s. weekly. 

Finally an agreement relating to the Kingdom of Saxony and 
concluded in 1906 may be quoted :— 

‘*¢ Hours of work, 5 a.m. till 7 p.m. Half an hour allowed for 
breakfast and afternoon vesper and a hour at noon. 

“The wages are as follows—Men, 10d. per day when 
not on piecework; women and youths, 9$d. per day when not 
on piecework ; overtime, 2d. and 1}d. respectively per hour. 

‘** Rations—For men, 11 lb. of bread per week, women 
and youths, 8°8 lb., with 8 quarts of skimmed milk, 1°10 Ib. of 
fat, 1°10 lb. of meat or 6d., 274 lb. potatoes, 1°10 Ib. rice or 
lentils, 1°10 lb. peas, 1°10 Ib. barley, 4 Ib. flour, 4 Ib. salt. 
These rations may not be sold or given away, and anything left 
over belongs to the employer ; every infraction of this condition 
is punishable with a fine of 2s. On demand the labourers must 
at all times work by piece, and then they must pay 48d. per day 
for food. 

‘¢ The following time is allowed to women for preparing meals 
~—Forenoon from 10 to 12 and afternoon from 6 to 7. 


THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 279 


* The labourers further have free lodging, with a straw pallet 
and a coverlet for each person, and free fuel. The dormitories 
are divided for the sexes. Every labourer has to deposit 30s. as 
security, this being deducted from his wages-at the rate of 3s. or 
4s. weekly. 

**Sickness premiums and taxes must be altogether paid by 
the labourers and are deducted from their wages. Whenever 
necessary the labourer must work on Sundays.” 

On the larger manorial estates it is usual to stipulate in 
the labourer’s wages agreement for the services of his wife as 
required, and also of all children of working age, for the whole 
family is expected to be at the call of the employer at any time. 
On these estates it is no uncommon thing for the schools 
to be closed at given seasons, so that all children over ten years 
may be turned into the woods to plant trees or destroy insects, 
into the fields to weed, glean, or pull beets, or to do other land 
work. When the task is over the school reassembles and all 
goes on comfortably as before. The teachers do not like these 
uncertain interruptions, nor yet do the school inspectors, but 
they are helpless. 

It would be possible to multiply illustrations of agricultural 
labour contracts indefinitely, but those quoted are representative. 
On the whole a fair estimate of a labourer’s pay will be from 
£25 to £40 in money and in kind.* 

Yet even low wages would not have driven the labourer from 
the land had not his legal position been such as to make it diffi- 
cult, and often impossible, to assert any claim to improved con- 
ditions of life. With the domestic servant the agricultural 
labourer in most parts of Germany is in the unique position 
of being legally disqualified from combining for economic ends. 
The law of Prussia will serve as an illustration of this disability. 
In order to understand the position of the agricultural labourer 
in Prussia it is necessary to go back to the emancipation of the 
serfs at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Convinced by 


* A Clerical deputy said in the Reichstag on February 8, 1907: ‘‘ The 
wages of agricultural labourers in Upper Silesia are high enough. A labourer 
with £30 10s. (under 14s. per week) in Upper Silesia is as well off as a Berlin 
workman with £60 or £70.’’ A Conservative landowner from Pomerania 
added: ‘‘ The agricultural labourer earns with us from 2s. to 3s. a day in 
summer, and has a piece of land and a good healthy dwelling.” Taking the 
whole year together, however, it is questionable whether the daily rate would 
exceed ls. 6d., equal to £22 10s. per annum for three hundred days’ work. 


280 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


his Ministers Baron vom Stein, von Schon, and others of the 
necessity of abolishing feudalism, King Frederick William III., 
on October 9, 1807, issued his famous Edict which, in addition to 
decreeing freedom of occupation both for burghers and peasants, 
and permitting both to acquire and hold property without condi- 
tion, released the cultivators of the soil in particular from their 
dependent position by the following clauses (10-12) :— 

** After the date of this Edict no subject-relationship shall 
exist further, whether by birth or marriage, by the assumption 
of a subject position, or by contract. . . . With Martinmas 
Day of 1810 all serfage in our States ceases. After that day 
there shall exist only free men.” 

But the large manorial proprietors viewed with apprehension 
the prospect of their labourers being free to go and do as they 
wished, and they besought the King to sanction the issue of a 
code of regulations for servants, or ‘‘ Servants’ Ordinance ”’ 
(Gesindeordnung), by which the liberty of the labourer would be 
restricted and he would still, for practical purposes, be bound to 
the soil. In spite of the opposition of Minister vom Stein, the 
King agreed, and several days before the emancipatory edict of 
1807 came into operation in November, 1810, the ‘‘ Servants’ 
Ordinance for all the provinces of the Prussian Monarchy of 
November 8, 1810,’ was promulgated. The object of this 
‘‘Ordinance’’ was said to be the removal of uncertainty on 
the subject of rights and duties as between employers and 
servants, and it superseded most of the existing provincial 
‘‘Ordinances’’ of the kind. But it did more. The old 
‘“‘ Ordinances’’ were intended to apply to domestic servants. 
The new and uniform ‘‘ Ordinance,’”’ by the mere introduction 
of a phrase, drew into its net the entire class of agricultural 
servants living with their masters. Other ‘‘ Ordinances ’’ have 
been issued since for provinces and districts of the monarchy, 
but the ‘‘ Ordinance’ of 1810 still applies to the provinces of 
the East and portions of the North and West. The oldest 
of the ‘‘Ordinances”’ still operative in Prussia is one dating 
from 1732 and applying to the Duchy of Lauenburg. 

The Prussian ‘‘ Servants’ Ordinance ’’ of 1810 applies, there- 
fore, not only to domestic servants but in general to all labourers 
who do not come under the general law of association—like the 
industrial workpeople— provided their relation to their employers 


THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 281 


is a permanent one and that they live in some way in the latter’s 
households. Its effect is that such labourers are bound to render 
obedience to a degree which differs but little from unrestricted 
compulsion ; the right to cancel a contract of service is limited 
to such an extent that it can hardly be said to exist at all; in 
addition they are expressly forbidden by law of April 24, 1854, 
to strike collectively under any circumstances whatever on pain 
of imprisonment ; so that, in effect, though the name of serfage 
is no longer used, this condition exists in spirit and almost in 
fact. 

Although reference is made to Prussia particularly, most of 
the German States have their ‘Servants’ Ordinances,’ and 
on the score of humane and equal treatment there is little to 
choose between them, save where, as in the case of Saxony,* 
their antiquated provisions have been amended. Not without 
justification Professor Lohmar has said that ‘‘ subject to this 
partial and paralysing law the agricultural labourer lives under 
a system of unrelieved absolutism.” 

The Prussian ‘‘ Servants’ Ordinance”’ has a fit complement 
in a law of 1854, applying only to agricultural labourers and 
domestic servants, punishing breach of contract. Section 1 of 
this law says :— 

*¢ Servants (Gesinde) who are guilty of obstinate disobedience 
or contumacy against the orders of their employers or persons 
having oversight of them, or who without legal ground refuse 
or leave service are, on the application of the employers, yet 
without prejudice to their right to dismiss or retain them, 
liable to a fine not exceeding 5 thalers (15s.) or imprisonment 
up to three days.” 

Such a provision is foreign to the general spirif of German 
penal legislation. No other class of citizens is exposed to 
positive penalties for breach of contract; the only redress is a 
claim for injury sustained. This is, for example, the only 
satisfaction at the command of an industrial employer whose 
workpeople leave work without notice, as often happens in the 


* A modernised Servants’ Ordinance was promulgated for the Kingdom of 
Saxony in 1892, and it was amended in 1898. It is noteworthy that when the 
Imperial Civil Code was issued it expressly stipulated that all existing 
‘‘ Servants’ Ordinances”? were unaffected, and particularly ‘‘the liability to 
compensation of persons who induced servants to leave service illegally or who 
engaged servants knowing that they were already in service.” 


282 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


case of a strike, and the trouble and expense involved are so 
serious and the result so uncertain and so unsatisfactory that 
the law is seldom setin motion. Very different is the position of 
workers in agricultural and domestic service. Here the law is not 
merely stringent in itself, but it is often arbitrarily and harshly 
enforced. 

In a recent report upon breach of contract amongst agricul- 
tural labourers in Mecklenburg Professor Ehrenberg states that 
amongst the reasons for this form of illegality are the isolated 
position of the large estates and excessive work, but he add. - 
‘*Finally the farmers themselves often provide, directly and 
indirectly, the occasion of breach of contract.’’ There is, no 
doubt, breach of contract on both sides, but on the whole the 
labourer has the worst of it. An employer is able to get rid of 
inconvenient labourers with the briefest possible notice, or none 
at all, and when told to go a labourer often has to quit his 
dwelling in a day or two, to leave his crop of potatoes standing, 
to forfeit rations due, and possibly to lose the ‘‘ caution money ”’ 
which the landlord has retained from his wages, and which 
generally amounts to from a fortnight’s to a month’s pay. 
Theoretically, servants who abruptly leave their employers’ 
service may no longer be taken back by force, but the practice 
is nevertheless resorted to. But while the employer can dismiss 
his servants on a multitude of pretexts, the servant has only a 
few grounds of objection against his employer, and he is rarely 
successful in finding a court which will pronounce any of them 
sufficient to justify the breaking of his contract, for the local 
courts of jurymen naturally take the side of the landowners.* 


* Thus the newspapers recently reported the following case: ‘*A labourer 
engaged on an estate in an Hast Prussian village was employed on a contract 
which freed him from Sunday work. Being required to perform such work he 
declined and was dismissed on the spot, was ordered to quit his dwelling, and, 
on the initiative of the landowner, was called on by the local judge of first 
instance to pay a fine of 3s. for ‘disobedience.’ Before paying this fine he 
called for the decision of the court, and the court of jurymen now fined him 
10s., with the costs of proceedings. On appeal to a higher court he obtained 
the reversal of the previous judgments.’’ Again, a young labourer of nineteen 
years left his employment because the farmer had violently beaten him. He 
returned to his home, which was not far distant, and the following day received 
from the local magistrate a summons to return to work, failing which he would 
be fined 10s. or be imprisoned for three days, ‘‘ according to Section 1 of the 
law of April 24, 1854.’’ As he could not pay and would not return to work he 
was at once arrested. All this was done without any judicial investigation of 
the merits of the case, 


THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 283 


Equally disastrous in its effect upon the rural labour 
question is the fact that for the better part of a century 
ameliorative legislation has virtually disregarded the agri- 
cultural worker. There is profound truth in the words of 
H. Sohnrey: ‘‘ When the new commercial treaties were about 
to be concluded the farmer said, ‘ Let us only have corn duties 
high enough and we shall be able to pay our labourers higher 
wages and so to compete with the wages of industry.’ That 
would be pertinent if the rural labour question were merely a 
question of wages. But it is as little a wages question 
exclusively as it is a housing question exclusively. That is 
proved by the fact that the complaints of a scarcity of 
agricultural labour were never louder than now, when the corn- 
growers have more favourable duties and wages have corre- 
spondingly increased. Nor is there in general any question of 
a lack of dwellings, though it is the popular idea that this is 
the cause of the ‘ land-flight.’ Both the wages and housing 
questions are only elements of the great labour question, 
which is nothing less than a national question of civilisation, 
whose roots go back more than a century—a question in 
which a multitude of the most various problems of our time, 
economic, intellectual, and more especially military, meet.’ 

The ameliorative laws which freed the peasantry from serfage 
at the beginning of the nineteenth century gave a new stimulus 
to agriculture, but with those laws—nullified, as we have 
seen, in the case of the labourer—solicitude for the rural 
population seems to have been exhausted. For a time all went 
well. It is a fact, indeed, that for a full half-century the 
population of the rural districts increased more rapidly than 
that of the urban districts, and it was still possible to speak of 
Germany as an agricultural State. 

Then came the rise of industry, the growth of the towns, and 
the organisation on a great scale of urban labour, which daringly 
began to talk of rights and to make its demands heard in the 
legislatures of the land. It is a fact, too often strangely 
ignored by those who profess surprise at the magnitude of 
Germany’s rural question, that nearly all the social legislation 
of the past forty years has been legislation on behalf of the 
industrial classes. \s 

The great Labour Code of 1869 and the amendments 


284 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 

passed since do not mention the agricultural labourer. The 
factory and workshop inspection regulations do not touch him. 
Even the industrial insurance laws have only slowly, and still 
incompletely, recognised any claim on the part of the rural 
workers to the beneficent provision against sickness, accident, ~ 
and invalidity which the town workers have enjoyed for over 
twenty years. 

Even now the majority of agricultural and forest labourers~ 
enjoy no sickness insurance, and have only the Poor Law or 
the uncertain hand of charity to fall back upon in time of 
temporary need. 

Not only so, but, as we have seen, the right of combination, 
which the industrial workpeople have in limited form enjoyed 
thoughout the Empire for some forty years, is absolutely with- 
held from the agricultural labourer.* The only weapon of 
defence which he possesses in common with workpeople 
generally is the right of free migration, secured for the first 
time under the constitution of the North German Confederation. 
If, resenting the State’s disregard of him, he decided to use 
this right and wandered off to the towns, there to join the 
ranks of the urban workers, for whom the State did care, and 
to claim the benefit of the remedial measures passed in their 
behalf, who could blame him ? 

‘‘To the labourers of the village,’ writes Sohnrey, ‘‘ nothing 
remains of the land to-day but the bare road; can it bewondered 
at that they should use this road, made so wide and commodious » 
by the enclosure of common lands, in order to get away from the 
country as quickly as possible?” 

Not long ago a far-seeing Prussian landowner wrote: ‘‘ If 
twenty-five years ago we had given our agricultural labourers half 
the increase of wages which we are giving them now, we should 
to-day have had better and cheaper labour in abundance.” That 
may be true or not: it is certainly probable that if the ameliora- 
tive legislation which is now slowly becoming recognised as the 
right of the agricultural labourer, and as the simple duty of 


* In 1866 a Bill was introduced in the Prussian Diet which was intended to 
give the right of coalition to agricultural labourers. The exposé des motifs said, 
‘¢ Tf the prohibitions of coalition relating to industrial workpeople are repealed 
these relating to agricultural labourers must be repealed likewise, and that not 
from general reasons of expediency but for legal reasons.’? The answer was & 
non sequitur, and that answer has not yet been reversed. 


THE RURAL LABQUR PROBLEM 285 


society towards him, had been passed when the State awakened 
to the necessity of legislating for the new conditions of industry 
. in 1881, the rural problem, while it might not have been entirely 
staved off, would not have taken its present acute form. The 
great mistake of the large landowner and the small farmer 
’ alike has been in their neglect to attach to themselves a faithful 
race of labourers while they had the chance, before the tradition 
of attachment had been destroyed and the old ties became 
strained to breaking point. 

Infinite mischief has also been done by the wholesale enclosure 
of common lands and by the abolition in many districts of the 
old custom of paying the labourer partly in money and partly in 
kind—in corn and fuel, in land for potatoes, flax, and linseed, in 
pasture and forage for cattle, sheep, and goats. The custom had 
its disadvantages, yet it was a human tie between the two, and 
where a reasonable spirit was shown on the employer’s side and 
the money payment was not too grudgingly curtailed it produced 
a good relationship, giving to the labourer a direct interest in the 
estate and that subtle feeling of independence and dignity which 
a man’s cultivation of the soil for his own sake seems always and 
- everywhere to create. 

, It would be wrong, however, to group all landowners and 
farmers together indiscriminately. Very many are deeply con- 
cerned for the welfare of their labourers, and such men have their 
-reward in a loyalty and attachment which descend from father to 
son. Even where conditions of life are found at their worst it is 
in general less a question of deliberate want of consideration than 
of obsolete views of the relationship between master and servant, 
views which are the direct result of the old feudal system, 
which lives in spirit where the letter has been killed. It is 
significant of a new spirit abroad that the Chamber of Agriculture 
of the Province of Silesia should have stated in a recent report 
on the subject: ‘‘ The ultimate reason of the wholesale migration 
from the East must be sought in the psychical and ethical 
factors which have created the modern social question. <A 
longing for greater independence is passing through the masses— 
an endeavour after higher social position and respect for their 
personality. The ideals of liberty and human worth which were 
formerly confined to the middle classes have during the century 
penetrated to the lowest strata of the population. The one great 


286 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


means of remedying the present need lies in the hands of the 
rural employers themselves—an improvement in the personal 
treatment of the labourers and in the material conditions of 
their work.” . 

In the same sense a Saxon writer on the question said re- 
cently :—“‘ Secure to the rural labourer—as you may by sincere 
and by no means exhausting efforts for his welfare—the hope of 
better times; give him a home worthy of human beings; help — 
him and his family more in sickness: afford him more thorough 
protection to life and health while at work ; and above all things 
free him from the oppressing consciousness that he is only a 
second-rate workman without the rights of the industrial workman. 
The need of labourers will disappear in the measure that 
employers show appreciation for the labourers’ needs—not merely 
their material needs, but the social needs which press them down 
perhaps even more heavily.’’* 

In many districts serious attempts are being made to make the 
rural labourer feel more at home on the land, and a large amount 
of genuine philanthropy has been called forth by this new 
awakening to his needs and aspirations.t Thus the German 
Association for Rural Welfare and Home Culture is endeavouring 
to check migration by improving the conditions of rural life and 
making the country a more tolerable abode than it is for the 
labourer and his family. 

It is, after all, individual effort which alone will solve the rural 
question in so far as its difficulties are the result of unfavourable 
conditions of life and incompatible relationships between master 
and man; and while there are many conspicuous exceptions the 
country party as a whole refuse to read the signs of the times 
and persist in clinging to the outlived theories of social subjection 
which are responsible for their present troubles. Instead of 
endeavouring to induce the labourer to remain on the land 
voluntarily, by making his service more tolerable, he is to be 
forcibly prevented, by all sorts of checks and hindrances, from 
migrating to districts where wages are higher and work more 
attractive. The argument by which this policy is justified is 
that the labourer belongs to the landlord, as much now as in the 


* Hermann Kohler, ‘‘ Landwirthschaft und Sozialdemokratie.’’ 

+ One reads with admiration of an East Prussian lady of the manor who has 
begun the experiment of taking the labourers on her estate periodically ie the 
theatre and other amusements in the nearest town. 


THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 287 


days of serfage, for the money by which he is fed and brought 
up to manhood has come out of the same pocket which fed and 
brought up the bound serf of old. Count Kanitz candidly avowed 
this standpoint when attacking the industrialists in the Prussian 
Diet in May, 1907, for robbing the land of its rightful cultivators. 
*‘ Every adult labourer,’ he said, ‘‘represents a considerable 
capital which we have laid out, yet when the ‘people’ (Leute) 
are grown up they offer their labour to industry, which thus reaps 
where it has not sown.” ‘‘ Quite true!’’ was the cry which in 
chorus greeted this typical example of agrarian reasoning from 
the adjacent benches. 

Several years ago a complete programme of measures in the 
interest of agriculture was introduced in the Prussian Diet and 
commended to the Government by the combined votes of the 
Conservative fractions. One of these measures was the regula- 
tion of employment agencies with a view to curtailing their 
activity in rural districts. Not only were employment agents to 
be required to obtain a ‘‘concession”’ from a public authority 
before beginning business, but the grant of permission was to be 
made dependent upon the proved existence of a need for such 
agents. In practice, the employment agent was to be forbidden 
to offer work to agricultural labourers, whether they desired a 
change of employer or employment or not. Another measure 
was the sharpening of the law regarding breach of contract, so as 
to make it more difficult for discontented agricultural labourers 
and servants to leave their employment even under the special 
circumstances which legally justify an immediate dissolution of 
the contract of service. The teaching in rural schools was every- 
where to be adapted, as to hours and seasons, to the local needs 
of agriculture. State undertakings were to be required to free as 
many workpeople as possible at harvest-time, so that the corn and 
beet grower and the general body of farmers might have a greater 
reserve of temporary labour to draw upon at need. The prisoners 
in houses of correction were to be made available to a far larger 
extent than hitherto for improvement works in the country. 
Where rural offenders of certain classes were liable to imprison- 
ment, their detention was to take place at a time when agriculture 
could best dispense with their labour. Further, the issue of 
workmen’s tickets on the State and private railways was to be 
restricted, with a view to diminishing the agricultural labourer’s 


988 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


choice of occupation. Young people under eighteen years of age 
were to be forbidden to leave home for other districts without 
the express permission of their parents or guardians.* Another 
demand was that in harvest-time soldiers should be placed at the 
disposal of landowners and farmers. Finally, recruits and reser- 
vists were to be called up at slack seasons of the year, and time- 
served men who had been taken from rural districts were to be 
given railway tickets to their former homes and nowhere else. 

The Conservatives secured the adoption by the Diet of this 
characteristic programme by a large majority; some of the 
remedies proposed have already been applied by the Govern- 
ment, though most of them still afford the Junkers material 
for periodical debates in the Prussian Houses of Parliament. 
Thus the Industrial Code has been amended so as to make the 
vocation of employment agents subject to ‘‘ concession,’ while 
various conditions are imposed as to how they shall carry on their 
business. Further, the use of soldiers who are sent from the 
garrisons in the agricultural provinces to perform farm work 
at harvest-time increases every year; for example, in the 
summer of 1907 no fewer than 7,000 men of the First Army 
Corps (about a third of the whole) were engaged on the large 
farms of East Prussia as harvesters. The practice began with 
the large landowners who had friends at court; but now the 
peasant farmers press for help and receive it. The same thing 
prevails in the South. t 

There are even found agrarians who contend that the period of 
military service should be reduced from two years to one year, 
with a view to releasing labour for rural use. Necessity, indeed, 
suggests to the perplexed agriculturists many ingenious devices. 
The Westphalian and West Prussian Chambers of Agriculture 


* How attractive appears to be the idea of repealing or restricting the right 
of migration may be judged by the fact that at the Evangelical Social Congress 
held at Hanover in May, 1907, Professor Harnack, the President, said: ‘*‘ What 
is good for the West may not be applicable to the East. Even the question of 
free migration in relation to rural districts is not a question that can be easily 
settled.” The Evangelical Social Congress is not, of course, in any way 
representative of the agrarian classes. 

+ The following appeared in the newspapers during the summer of 1907: 
‘¢ The Deputy for Metz has requested the Commanding General of the 16th Army 
Corps that the military may be allowed to go to the aid of agriculture during 
harvest. The General has replied that he has instructed all commanders of 
regiments, that so far as the interests of the service permit, all likely men, te 
the number of about 40 per battalion, shall be placed at the disposal of the 
farmers.’’ 


THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 289 


have formally petitioned the Government to permit the importa- 
tion of Chinese labourers, the organ of the Agrarian League has 
defended the proposal, and a prominent Conservative in the 
Prussian Lower House has declared that the agrarians will not 
rest until sanction has been granted. When in 1906 a stream 
of labourers of German nationality set in from Russia, the East 
Prussian manorial proprietors urged the Government to take 
summary steps to retain this supply of labour in their corner of 
the monarchy. It was simply to issue a decree that when 
any labourer crossed the frontier into Germany his passport 
should be taken from him and in its place he should be given 
a “labour ticket’’ directing him to an agricultural employer, 
whose service he should be required to enter on pain of deporta- 
tion. Like many other original suggestions which have emanated 
from the same quarter, the idea was politely received but 
disregarded. 

Above all the agrarians agitate for a severer law on the subject 
of breach of contract. Here two irreconcilable tendencies of 
political thought show themselves in Prussia. On the one hand 
the Liberal parties wish to repeal the existing law of contract as 
between agricultural employers and employees and to regulate the 
question according to the Civil Code, making breach of contract 
a matter of civil process. On the other hand the agrarians ask 
that the existing money penalty shall be converted into im- 
prisonment without the option of a fine, and that heavy penalties 
shall apply to employers who take into their service labourers who 
have broken their contracts of service, to employment agents 
through whose instrumentality their re-engagement may have 
been effected, and to labourers who may be proved to have 
encouraged their fellows to the commission of illegal acts. The 
law of Mecklenburg already covers all these points. 

Meanwhile, the labour difficulty is palliated by the importation 
of seasonal labourers. Throughout the whole of the East and 
the North of Prussia, and to a less degree in other parts 
of the kingdom and of Germany generally, foreign labour is 
systematically employed from spring to autumn, and the large 
estates rely almost wholly upon this supply. The majority of 
the foreigners used to be Russians, but a large number now 
come from Galicia. Several of the Prussian Chambers of 
Agriculture have employment agencies on the Russian and 


290 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Austrian frontiers, from which a constant stream of labourers, 
each supplied with passport and railway ticket, is from early 
spring onward passed on to various destinations in the East and 
North. Some of these agencies engage many thousands of 
labourers in the course of a season; the migration continues 
until the harvest, and that over the return begins, for the 
foreigners are not allowed to remain permanently in the 
country.* 

The wages paid to these imported labourers are low, but as 
food and lodging (both of a very simple kind) are generally 
included, the men are able to take a few pounds home at the end 
of the season. The rates offered by the Brandenburg Chamber 
of Agriculture to labourers from Galicia are for men 1s. per day 
from June 1st to September 1st, and 103d. during the remainder 
of the year, so far as they are employed, and for women, girls, 
and youths, 9$d. and 84d. respectively, with rations of bread, 
skimmed milk, potatoes, dripping, peas, rice, and salt. Money 
is not given instead of this food; no portion of the food may 
be sold, and if any is not consumed it must be returned to the 
employer. The labourers are housed in a bothy, each having 
a straw mattress and a rug. 

The wages offered in 1907 to Russian labourers in East 
Prussia were: Men who can mow, Is. 94d. per day, with 
2s. 34d. per day during six weeks of harvest; men and strong 
youths unable to mow, 1s. 6d. per day, with 2s. during the 
harvest ; women, girls, and youths of inferior capacity, 1s. 34d. 
per day, with 1s. 94d. during harvest ; with in every case weekly 
rations of 274 lb. of potatoes, a little wheat-meal, and three 
pints of skimmed milk. It is seldom that the wages are paid 
in full, for a common clause in the agreement runs: “‘ For the 
employer’s security the wages of the first month and a half, or 
3s. weekly for the first ten weeks, are only payable when the 
labourer leaves in a regular manner.’”’ When the labourer 
leaves otherwise—a point which he is not allowed to decide— 
this surety money is forfeited. 


* Since this chapter was written the Prussian Government has introduced a 
system of licensing on the frontiers. Russian labourers may engage themselves 
at fourteen places on the frontiers of Upper Silesia, West Prussia, and Hast 
Prussia, Galician labourers at two places in Silesia, and Hungarian labourers at_ 
one. Without a licence no foreign seasonal labourer will henceforth be allowed 
to enter the country. 


THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 291 


_ The following conditions of employment are taken from an 
original contract of recent date, concluded between an East 
Prussian farmer and a Polish labourer, who also engaged his 
wife and the whole of his children of working age :— 

“Work begins at 5 a.m. and lasts until 7 p.m., with in- 
tervals of one hour at noon and half an hour each for breakfast 
and vesper. 

‘In urgent cases the labourers must work beyond these hours, 
the employer or his agent alone determining when this shall be 
done. For overtime men and youths shall be paid 1d. per 
hour, and women, girls, and boys 1d. 

“Rates of time wages.—In ordinary seasons (not harvest 
time) men who can mow receive 1s. 6d. per day, women, youths 
and girls over 16 years, 1s.; but during corn harvest in August 
2s. and 1s. 6d. respectively. For potato digging with hoe or 
spade, 24d. per basket of 1 cwt., but 13d. if the potatoes are 
ploughed up. In addition, every workman receives 274 lb. 
(English) of potatoes per week, 13 pint of skimmed milk daily, 
and quarters in the bothy, with straw mattress and woollen 
coverlet. 

‘¢ A common fireplace is also provided for cooking and wash- 
ing, together with the requisite fuel, and a box is supplied to 
every two persons for the preservation of their belongings. 

*‘The men must bring their own scythes. Other implements 
will be provided, but they will be held responsible for their 
safety and proper care, and all injury caused by wrongful usage 
or loss must be made good. 

‘“‘ Payment is every Saturday, but for eight weeks two shillings 
of the wages will be retained weekly, to be returned in the event 
of the labourer leaving under regular circumstances. 

‘Should a labourer absent himself from work without per- 
mission, get drunk during work, or transgress the house regula- 
tions, he will be fined sixpence, which shall be retained from his 
wages at the next pay day.” 

There is little sentimentality about the treatment of these 
foreign labourers. They are heartily disliked, but they are 
regarded as a necessary evil. It must also be admitted also 
that the labourers are a severe test of patience, and breaches 
of contract are frequent. 

In the present state of the law there is little political propa- 


2992 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


gandism amongst the agricultural labourers, and organisation— 
even of the loosest and most informal kind—can hardly be said 
to exist. Their very poverty is an obstacle, for it makes them 
look askance at invitations to help movements which they know 
will cost money. Further, local leaders are at present incon- 
ceivable in rural districts, where autocracy rules and free speech 
is unknown. The Social Democrats do, indeed, make spasmodic 
attempts to stir up the agricultural labourers, but it is generally 
at election times, and the success which attends their efforts is 
not encouraging, 

The Socialists plead in extenuation that rural labourers are 
unfit for organisation on trade union lines, that they lack 
class consciousness, and do not understand the significance 
of modern labour movements, and they point with a certain 
scorn to the fact that at present 75 per cent. of their number 
persist in voting with the Conservatives. This is all true; but a 
deeper explanation lies in the fact that the rural labourer of the 
older generation—particularly in the Roman Catholic districts— 
regards the Social Democrat from the political standpoint and sees 
in him only an opponent and subverter of all the pillars of 
society which he has been trained to respect and revere—the 
Monarchy, the Church, and the moralities of life. If the rural 
labourer shows no sign of a desire to make common cause with 
the advanced labour movement the reason is that this movement 
has been identified with measures which have nothing to do with 
labour. 

At the present time endeavours are being made to organise 
the rural labourers of Bavaria, where no legal hindrance to their 
coalition exists, under the banner of Roman Catholicism, and 
the leaders of the movement would appear to be confident of 
success. ‘The obstacle there, however, lies less with the labourers 
than with the small peasants, who fear that the greater indepen- _ 
dence of labour will mean higher wages, a fear not without 
justification. 

In general it is a firm belief, honestly held, that the bestowal 
upon the agricultural labourer of the right to combine would 
fill to overflowing his cup of misfortune that causes the agrarian 
everywhere to offer unreserved opposition to this aspiration. 
And yet it is no paradox to say that the true and only way of 
checking the scarcity of labour is to make the labourer still 


THE RURAL LABOUR PROBLEM 293 


more free to go his way, for only then will the landlord have a 
genuine incentive to persuade him to stay. The only argument 
by which the agrarians attempt to defend the existing law is that 
it is more necessary to bind the agricultural than the industrial 
labourer, since the sudden cessation of employment in the 
country might destroy the entire harvest. But the plea is quite 
inconclusive, and evades the true secret of the labour famine 
from which so many rural districts suffer. As a fact there are 
some industries, dependent on unskilled labour, whose employers 
run far greater risk in the event of sudden stoppages than is the 
case with farmers. What the agrarian has not learned and 
refuses to learn is the futility of his idea of bound service. 
There are scores of industrial employers in Germany to whom 
continuous work is necessary, and who have greater gain or 
loss at stake in a week than the largest East Elbe landowner 
during a whole season, who have voluntarily renounced the claim 
to notice from their workpeople, so that the relationship on both 
sides can be cancelled at any hour, yet it is the general experience 
of such employers that the looser in theory the tie between them- 
selves and their workpeople, the faster it is in reality, since the 
absence of any claim to have notice or obligation to give it 
exerts a steadying influence on both sides. 

Every one who has studied the German rural question dis- 
interestedly, and has tried fairly to understand the mind of the 
rural labourer, knows that the present laws of association and 
contract, so unequal in their operation, so out of harmony with all 
modern ideas, are as much responsible as low wages and the 
generally unfavourable conditions of the labourer’s life for the 
labour scarcity. It is also safe to predict that until and—so 
slow in effect is the amelioration of old-standing evils—long after 
these laws are modified and humanised the migration to the 
towns will continue. 


CHAPTER XV 
CO-OPERATION 


The German genius for Co-operation—Number and character of Co-operative 
societies and undertakings—Importance of the rural; banks and credit 
societies—Distributive Co-operation not developed as much asin England 
—The Raiffeisen Co-operative movement described—The Prussian Central 
Co-operative Bank—The attitude of the State towards the Co-operative 
movement. 


DISPOSITION to combine for the promotion of mutual 
interests, amounting almost to an instinct, has marked the 
German people from the earliest period, as the historian Gustav 
Freytag shows in his work, ‘‘ Pictures of the German Past.” 
This characteristic has found expression in recent times in the 
development of Co-operation and in the application of the 
principle in the most various directions. On the lowest estimate 
one in every fifteen inhabitants of Germany belongs to a Co- 
operative society of one kind or another. The ratio in the United 
Kingdom, the home of Co-operation, is barely one in twenty. 
The German Co-operative societies may be classed in four main 
groups or federations, viz., (1) the ‘‘General Union”’ of societies 
bearing the name of Schulze-Delitzsch, the Radical social 
reformer, who did so much for the popularising of Co-operative 
principles in Germany ; (2) the ‘Central Union” of societies ; 
(3) the Raiffeisen system of societies, for the most part agri- 
cultural, with its seat at Neuwied on the Rhine; and (4) the 
‘‘TImperial Union” of agricultural societies, though the two 
associations last named have since 1905 been amalgamated. 
As to purpose, the main types are credit societies, both 
agricultural and industrial; societies for the purchase and 
supply of raw material; productive societies ; societies trading 
in manufactured goods ; food stores; and building societies. The 
last group disregards, of course, the enormous number of 


‘public utility”? and other building societies which have been 
994 


CO-OPERATION 295 


formed for the purpose of erecting cheap working-class dwellings 
in town and country by the aid of State credit or loans from the 
Insurance Boards. For practical purposes the Co-operative 
societies may be further divided into those which depend on self- 
help and eschew State patronage, comprising the entire Schulze- 
Delitzsch group and the ordinary distributive stores, and the 
predominantly agricultural societies of the Raiffeisen and 
“‘Imperial Union’’ types, which claim and receive State 
encouragement and even subsidy. 

The aggregate number of societies of all kinds at the beginning 
of 1907 was 25,714, and their membership was 3,860,143. 
Roughly, only one in twelve was a “‘stores’’ society and only 
one in four of the members belonged to societies of that type, 
for the uniqueness and strength of the German Co-operative 
movement lie in the hold which it has obtained upon the 
agricultural classes, and especially the small farmers. The 
following were the societies, with their membership, in exist- 
ence at the date named :— 


Number of Number of 


Characier or Purpose of Societies. Soatotios. Mein bacas 


Credit *' ... bas ay! a .--| 15,602 2,113,653 
Industrial raw material se Wie’ inh aes 257 9,627 
Agricultural raw material oe at ok 4 1,786 151,507 
Purchase of goods are dai i oe a3 129 5,405 
Industrial work .. ih ; ; ti 341 23,182 
Agricultural work 321 7,239 
Purchase of machinery and instruments 11 1,052 
Industrial trading warehouses 78 3,420 
Agricultural trading warehouses 290 37,960 
Industrial raw material and warehouse we 125 4,253 
Agricultural raw material and warehouse ... 21 2,582 
Productive (industrial)... Ae 230 24,504 
Productive agricultural), viz.— 
1. Dairy and cheesery 2,882 232,176 
2. Distillery ; 187 3,218 
SaWine,)s *... 196 11,314 
4, Field and garden produce 80 5,848 
5. Butchers ae 4 405 
6. Fishery .. 9 518 
7. Forestry... 4 55 
Breeding ... es 159 11,437 
Co- -operative Stores 2,006 1,037,613 
House and Building 681 129,272 
House and Building (for common parposes) 86 10,316 
Other Societies ... ay 234 33,587 
Totals ... dee Nes bie | 25,714 3,860,143 


a a te 


296 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


In Prussia alone the number of registered Co-operative 
societies increased from 2,912 in 1890 to 5,185 in 1895, 
9,429 in 1900, and 18,331 in 1905, and in 1904 the average 
number of members per society was 147. Here, too, the most 
numerous group of societies is that of the credit societies. 

Of the credit societies the great majority are rural. Most 
of them are based on the limited liability principle, though the 
Raiffeisen societies are an important exception. Of the raw 
material societies the principal are those of the shoemakers, 
tailors, bakers and confectioners, metal workers, filers, barbers, 
joiners, and painters and varnishers. The ‘‘ industrial work ” 
societies chiefly carry on corn mills, electrical and gas works, 
joinery works and butchers’ shops; and of the “‘ agricultural work”’ 
societies the majority are thrashing societies, while the rest own 
and work steam ploughs and other agricultural machinery. The 
warehouse societies deal mainly in furniture, bricks, hides and 
skins, live stock, poultry and eggs, corn, spirit, hops, and tobacco. 
The industrial raw material societies consist of basket makers, 
tailors, wood workers, shoemakers, fitters, smiths, and tinners, 
&c.; the industrial productive societies of bakers, printers, 
brewers, furniture, starch, and brick makers, spinners and 
weavers ; the agricultural productive societies carry on dairies, 
spirit distilleries, vineyards, corn mills, fruit farms, jam 
factories, and preserved food factories. The miscellaneous 
societies include societies for water supply, insurance, land 
purchase and allotment, or carrying on publishing works, 
sanatoria, and licensed premises. 

It is a remarkable fact that while English co-operators have 
laid stress upon the distributive side of Co-operation, inasmuch 
that to the average co-operator in this country the beginning and 
end of the movement, which was started with aims and ideals so 
much wider and more fertilising, is the half-yearly dividend of the 
grocery store, in Germany this is a department of Co-operation 
which has made comparatively little progress. In several of the 
larger towns, like Hamburg (the seat of the Co-operative Whole- 
sale Society), Breslau, Dresden, and Leipzig, the stores have 
appropriated a large share of working-class trade, but in most 
towns distributive Co-operation is a plant of slow and uncertain 
growth. The stores may report a large nominal membership, 
but as often as not the annual turnover per head does not exceed 


CO-OPERATION 297 


a week’s or a fortnight’s household needs, and it is evident that 
the co-operator has greater faith in the goods or the dealings of 
the private trader. As a rule the stores are only allowed to sell 
to members, unless they actually produce the goods purveyed 
(bread is almost the only exception), in which case they may 
supply the general public. The 2,006 German Co-operative stores, 
with their 1,087,618 members, which existed at the beginning 
of 1907, compared with 2,291 stores, with a membership of over 
two millions, in the United Kingdom. The turnover of the 
German societies in 1904 averaged £15 12s. per member, that 
of the English societies in 1905 £28 8s. 

On the other hand, the agricultural societies of all kinds 
have enormously increased in number, membership, and 
activity during recent years, the total at the end of 1906 being 
20,432, and it is safe to say that they have done more for the 
small farmers than all the agrarian and protective laws together. 

Conservative in many things, the German farmer was quick to 
recognise the value of associations which placed credit within 
his reach on terms more favourable than he had secured from 
private banks and money-lenders; which enabled him to purchase 
his manures and other raw material direct from the manu- 
facturers, without paying tribute to the middleman; which 
brought into his parish steam ploughs, reaping machinery, and 
other costly mechanical aids beyond the means of individual 
tenants; which collected his produce, his corn, potatoes, fruit, 
milk, and eggs, and found for it a sale at better prices than he 
had been able to obtain so long as he bargained alone; which 
established dairies, creameries, and cheeseries, and with 
machinery of the most modern kind produced for him and 
all the countryside butter and cheese of better quality and 
higher marketable value than had been possible with the old 
homely methods; which introduced superior strains into his 
stalls and stables, folds and styes, improved his seed and 
orchard stocks—in a word, which offered him the advantages 
that had hitherto been the monopoly of the large proprietors, 
thanks to their command of the resources of wealth, science, 
knowledge, and experience. Societies for the realisation of all 
these aims exist in large numbers in all the agricultural 
States, and their work increases in importance every year. 
Thus the principal Co-operative society for the sale of 


298 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


agricultural produce in the Prussian province of Hanover had 
a turnover in 1906 of £428,000. As an illustration of what 
agriculturists are willing to do for themselves, it may be stated 
that an agricultural combination recently purchased the majority 
of shares in a potash mining company in Prussia with a view 
to securing a preponderance of influence on behalf of their 
industry. 

It is, however, the credit societies which have done most 
for agriculture. An agrarian authority recently stated, ‘‘ The 
German peasantry were saved from ruin when by means of 
Co-operation personal credit was established.’’ So important is 
the work which has been done by these societies, and is being 
continued to-day with undiminished energy and success, that 
more than a passing reference to the pioneer Raiffeisen credit 
banks seems called for. The history of these banks is the more 
interesting since they seem to point to the solution of a notorious 
agricultural difficulty of our own—the lack of easy and advan- 
tageous ways of procuring ready money when it is most needed. 
There are the legitimate banks and the loan agencies, good and 
bad, but in resorting to either the farmer is compelled to pay a 
high rate of interest, and in the absence of substantial security 
he cannot succeed in borrowing money at all, however urgently 
he may require it. Under the circumstances, therefore, it is 
remarkable that the principle of co-operative banking and 
lending has so far made so little headway in this country 
amongst the agricultural classes. It is not likely that the 
money difficulty is an insuperable one, or the movement 
associated with the names of Raiffeisen and Schulze-Delitsch 
would not have made such wonderful progress in Germany and 
Austria. 

Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen, the philanthropist after whom 
the banks are named, was a native of Rhineland, and lived 
from 1818 to 1888. It was while acting as mayor of several 
rural communes that his attention was drawn to the financial 
difficulties under which farmers laboured. He saw that the 
smaller of their number were perpetually in want of capital, 
and that the means taken to cover the lack were extravagant 
and ruinous, since they allowed themselves to pass into the 
power of unscrupulous money-lenders. The Jews were the prin- 
cipal offenders, and again and again he saw how peasants, 


CO-OPERATION 299 


pressed for money to repay loans or to meet current rent, would 
literally give away both stock and implements to the usurer, in 
return for temporary financial relief. The simple rustic was 
seldom a match for the astute money-lender, who, while keeping 
on the side of the law, plundered his victims right and left. 
With a view to prevent this species of roguery Raiffeisen con- 
stantly intervened between the peasants and their dishonest 
patrons, and his official position and his native shrewdness 
enabled him to negotiate for the former fairer terms than they 
would otherwise have obtained. Taking his stand in the market- 
places, he would himself do the bargaining when cattle or sheep 
had to be disposed of, and in him the Jew met his master. 
Amongst the usurers, naturally, he was no favourite; but to 
the peasants he often proved a true and timely friend. The 
experience thus gained of the farmers’ wants and weaknesses 
originated in Raiffeisen’s mind the idea of Co-operative Credit 
Associations. After sundry experiments these associations were 
established on a modest scale in several places on the Rhine, 
and gradually their influence and fame spread until their founder 
was compelled to devote himself entirely to the work of directing 
a great Co-operative movement amongst the farmers of Germany, 
having many ramifications and achieving remarkably successful 
results. 

Nowadays not only are loan associations established all over 
the Empire, in direct connection with a Central Institute at 
Neuwied, but affiliated to them farmers’ Co-operative stores are 
carried on in great numbers, while the central authorities have 
called into existence, for the common good, a series of large 
establishments for the supply of agricultural requisites of all 
kinds. For example, there is a great machinery depdt at Frank- 
fort; Cologne is the seat of a central warehouse which buys 
on a wholesale scale on behalf of the branches; and elsewhere 
there are artificial manure manufactories, and even a tobacco 
manufactory, all conducted on the Co-operative principle. An 
idea of the magnitude of the system of Raiffeisen institutions 
may be gained from the fact that it requires a permanent staff of 
over three hundred officials of all grades. 

Only the main principles upon which the co-operative banks 
are based can be named in so summary a statement as this. 
The financial foundation of a credit association is laid by means 


300 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


of what are called ‘‘ business shares’’ of the maximum value of 
10s. No member can hold more than one share, and no higher 
dividend can be paid than the association pays in interest 
on money borrowed. The underlying principle is that of 
Co-operation with unlimited liability on the part of the 
members, a principle to which objection has frequently been 
taken theoretically, yet which in practice has worked with 
complete success. Indeed, during the whole fifty years’ 
existence of the Raiffeisen associations, it is stated that it 
has not happened once that members have suffered owing to the 
enforcement of this rule. This is not unnatural, for the rule 
ensures that men of character and ability, and, where possible, 
of substance, are placed at the head of affairs, and that a rigid 
system of control is exercised. 

Deserving farmers of all grades are the special objects of 
solicitude—men who are in their right place, who understand 
their calling, and who, even in spite of occasional difficulty 
and misfortune, can be trusted to help themselves. On the 
other hand, men of careless, improvident, and irregular habits 
are refused help from the invested funds. Yet artisans and 
labourers, who are practically interested, in however small a 
degree, in the land, and who are in want of a little money for 
the purchase of implements or the building or repair of houses, 
are favourably considered. 

The first essential, on a request for an advance of money 
being received, is that the affairs of the would-be borrower shall 
be carefully investigated, not inquisitorially, but with a view to 
learning his pecuniary position, his credit, the value of the 
security which he is able to offer, and the probable utility of the 
purpose for which the money desired is intended. This investi- 
gation is as desirable from the farmer’s standpoint as it is 
necessary from the association’s, for it is a cardinal point in 
the system that those who are taken under the egis of these 
associations are advised and helped in every possible way. The 
security, which generally takes the form of mortgage, is fixed by 
statute at twice the amount of the loan, but this somewhat hard 
rule is not adhered to in practice. 

As to the period of the loan, three modes of payment exist. 
There are short-term loans which must be returned in three 
months; there are long-term loans up to two years, with annual 


CO-OPERATION 301 


repayments ; and there are loans for indefinite terms which can 
be reduced at the borrower’s convenience. No laxity is allowed 
in regard to compliance with the terms and conditions of repay- 
ment agreed on, a matter which is regarded as vital to the 
success Of the banks, and the right to call in any loan at a 
month’s notice is reserved by the association. 

Great stress is laid upon the mutual principle, and that in 
various ways. Any profit that may be made by an association 
must be placed without deduction to a reserve fund, though it is 
expected that money will be advanced to members on the most 
favourable conditions. It is understood, too, that all branch 
officers must be honorary, save the actuary, though the payment 
of out-of-pocket expenses is allowable. Throughout, indeed, an 
endeavour is made to cultivate amongst the associated farmers 
the feeling and habit of mutual helpfulness, and in every 
direction the statutes of the associations eliminate, as far as 
possible, the play of self-interest. It is not surprising to hear 
that an invaluable part is often played in the work of these 
rural societies by the village schoolmaster. This public-spirited 
official often serves as the pivot around which the entire 
economic system of a rural community revolves. He not merely 
acts as secretary to the Raiffeisen bank and contracts loans for 
the small peasants, but he advises as to methods of agriculture 
and the sale of produce, he encourages thrift and receives the 
villagers’ savings once a week; in a word, he is a guide, 
philosopher, and friend to the whole countryside, and without 
reward discharges functions of untold value to the simple folk 
amongst whom his lot is cast. 

It is expected, and indeed required, that all credit associa- 
tions shall be affiliated to the Central Bank in Neuwied, whence 
the motive power of the entire Raiffeisen organisation proceeds. 
But this attachment to the Central Bank is no purposeless and 
arbitrary condition; on the contrary, it is of the greatest practical 
advantage to the various local banks that they shall be associated 
with a large institution in which they may deposit superfluous 
funds, and from which they may obtain money which it is beyond 
their own power otherwise to raise. The Central Bank was 
established in 1876 with a capital of £250,000 in shares of £50. 
Its principles and regulations entirely preclude the possibility of 
the Bank being subjected to the risk of speculative influences. 


302 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


The shares are held for the most part by the local associations, 
which may not transfer them without permission, and whose 
liability only extends to their own shares. Such is the confidence 
felt in the Central Bank that no fewer than 4,147 local associations 
are now connected with it, and it has a turnover of thirty-seven 
million pounds. In the year 1906, when the Imperial Bank was 
charging 7 and 8 per cent. for advances, and private banks were 
asking as much as 10 per cent. for temporary accommodation, 
the Raiffeisen Central Bank, thanks to its large resources 
and its credit, yet also to help given by the Prussian State 
Co-operative Bank, was able to lend money to its members at 
the rate of from 34 to 4 per cent. 

The General Director has courteously sent me several sample 
reports of recent date showing the work which is being done by 
the associations in typical agricultural villages. From these 
may be quoted passages which illustrate the wide-reaching 
character and influence of the associations’ operations :— 

‘‘ The savings bank at Baesweiler can report the best possible 
success. Since its establishment some fifteen houses for arti- 
sans and miners have been purchased, and the prosperity of 
the place has decidedly progressed. The thrift of the members 
is shown by their deposits of £3,000. The Bank lends at 
4 per cent., and pays 34 per cent. interest on deposits up to 
£25. It may truly be said that the Bank has been a blessing 
to the parish.”’ 

Again: ‘‘ The business of the Co-operative store is developing 
wonderfully and proves of the greatest benefit to the members. 
Various agricultural implements have been provided by the 
association and have proved of great value, in enabling farmers 
at last to benefit by modern mechanical improvements.”’ 

From another place the following is reported: ‘‘ Here the 
custom used to prevail of hiring oxen for ploughing, &c., the 
result being very beneficial to the lender, but unsatisfactory and 
uneconomical for the farmer. The association has, however, 
superseded this custom by advancing money wherewith farmers 
have been able to purchase their own oxen. By the provision of 
artificial manures remarkable success has also been secured in 
the cultivation of waste lands, which, though formerly entirely 
disregarded, now yield the most luxurious crops.” 

Finally, the following is from the report of an official inspector 


CO-OPERATION 303 


upon the associations of Lorraine generally: ‘‘ The advantages 
of the loan system are unmistakable, particularly the facility of 
repayment, since this can take place in instalments from week 
to week, or at shorter intervals, just as money can be spared. 
The articles offered for sale on the Co-operative principle are very 
popular. In districts without Raiffeisen associations the prices 
for artificial manures were formerly very high, but after the 
introduction of these associations they fell very considerably, and 
the result of their wide use is that the fertility of the soil has 
been greatly increased, insomuch that people who formerly could 
only produce wheat to last them three months can now supply 
their needs for the whole year out of their own harvests. More- 
over, by the co-operative sale Of machinery, marketable corn is 
produced, fetching the highest prices, and the peasant is enabled 
to use his crops better and to provide for himself a refreshing 
summer drink, whereby intemperance has been decidedly checked. 
The abuses of usury have been carefully watched, and in general 
the members have been helped with advice and practical measures 
by the officials of the associations.” 

At the present time no fewer than 4,159 rural Co-operative 
loan associations are affiliated to the Neuwied Central Organisa- 
tion, and in addition 652 Co-operative stores for the supply of 
agricultural machinery and other commodities, giving the large 
total of 4,811 associations of all kinds. The aggregate turnover of 
the central and local societies in 1906 exceeded fifty million pounds, 
an increase of eight millions on the previous year. The turnover 
in goods of all kinds amounted to nearly three and a half millions, 
an increase of a quarter of a million on the year. Thus out of 
humble beginnings has grown a movement not merely of national 
but of European extent ; for Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and more 
lately England and Ireland, are among the countries which are 
profiting by Raiffeisen’s efforts. While, however, the material 
benefits conferred upon the farming class have been incalculable, 
the moral benefit has also been great, for the true Raiffeisen ideal 
has ever been that the ultimate aim must be the permanent 
moral elevation of the associated farmers, and that economic and 
financial help must only be regarded as a means to this end. 
So firmly rooted have the Raiffeisen institutions become that it 
has been resolved to establish as soon as practicable a special 
training institution in which future officials will be systematically 


304 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


schooled in the principles and methods of this system of 
Co-operation. 

The Raiffeisen Central Association has a special department 
for social welfare, which encourages the establishment, in 
connection with the local organisations, of agricultural con- 
tinuation schools for young people of both sexes, cookery 
schools, village baths and wash-houses, libraries and reading- 
rooms, sickness and burial funds, nursing homes, &c. It has 
also begun to interest itself in the introduction of home 
industries in rural districts in the hope of checking the 
movement to the towns. 

The Raiffeisen movement—let it be candidly admitted—has — 
many critics in the land of its origin, and critics whose comments 
are not of a friendly character. But no adverse criticism has yet 
been levelled at the objects which it aims at attaining; the 
criticism is rather directed to some of the methods followed, and 
it is noteworthy that the methods singled out for attack, or at 
least for question, are precisely those to which Raiffeisen himself 
attached the most importance—those which must act as a check 
upon selfishness and which most promote solidarity and mutual 
dependence. 

One of the most useful auxiliaries of the Co-operative credit 
societies in Prussia is the institution known as the Central Co- 
operative Bank, a State institution established with ample 
resources for the purpose of providing needy Co-operative credit 
societies with funds. It was long ago found that the rural . 
savings and loan societies and the small credit societies in 
general were not strong enough to obtain sufficient money on 
satisfactory terms, and the wider their operations became the 
greater became this difficulty. Capital was the perpetual need 
of societies whose work lay chiefly amongst the small farmers, 
and the local resources available were seldom adequate. An 
endeavour was first made to remedy this deficiency by associated 
effort, the societies of districts or provinces joining to form 
limited liability companies, whose object it was to equalise 
the resources of the affiliated societies more effectively, so that 
the ampler investments of well-to-do societies might supply the 
needs of new and struggling organisations. 

A further step was taken in 1894 when the tenth congress of 
the German Agricultural Co-operative Societies, held at Hanover, 


CO-OPERATION 305 


decided on the formation of a Central Bank to serve for the 
whole Empire. The idea was everywhere applauded as an 
excellent one, so excellent, indeed, that before it could be carried 
into effect the Prussian Government borrowed it and promptly 
took measures to apply it in Prussia. Hence came into existence 
in 1895 the State Central Co-operative Bank (or Kasse), whose 
object it was and is to perform for the smaller agriculturists the 
same monetary service which is done for the commercial world 
by the Imperial Bank and the Seehandlung. The bank was pro- 
vided with an initial capital of £250,000, and the interest upon 
this capital was fixed at a maximum of 3 percent. A year later 
the State increased this capital to £1,000,000, and still later to 
£2,500,000, the rate of interest remaining at 3 per cent., though 
this rate has since fluctuated. Having at command large funds 
at a low interest the Bank is able to offer to agriculturists far 
cheaper credit than could be obtained from private sources. 
Loans are not, however, made to individuals nor yet to indi- 
vidual Co-operative societies, but only to associations of such 
societies. Its operations have greatly encouraged and strength- 
ened the Co-operative credit movement, and have brought needed 
funds within the reach of large classes of small farmers and even 
labourers who would have been unable to pay the usual com- 
mercial interest, for even after the Bank’s advances have passed 
through the hands of the Co-operative societies loans still reach 
the affiliated members at 4 per cent. or less. Nor has the 
influence of the Central Co-operative Bank rested here, for it has 
led to the multiplication of Co-operative savings and loan 
societies amongst the artisan class, to which the Bank offers 
equal help on the same conditions. 

It is worthy of note that the leaders of the Schultze-Delizsch 
Co-operative movement, faithful to ther traditional maxim of 
self-help, opposed the idea of State Co-operative banking, and 
their spokesmen in the Prussian Lower House did their best 
to defeat the Government’s scheme. The State Bank had not 
long been in operation, however, before a recognition of its 
advantages spread to the co-operators of the Manchester school, 
who formed federations in various parts of the country for the 
purpose of sharing in the offered help. Since then the Bank has 
been empowered to accept loans and deposits from the public 


Savings Banks, of which a large number are affiliated to it. More 
21 


306 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


important still, the example of Prussia has borne fruit in several 
other German States. In Bavaria, Saxony, Mecklenburg, and 
elsewhere flourishing State institutions of the same kind have 
for a long time been in operation. 

At the present time over fifty unions of Co-operative societies 
and banks are associated with the Prussian Central Bank, 
representing nearly 15,000 individual societies with an aggregate 
membership of a million and a half. During the financial year 
1906-7 loans were granted to the amount of twenty-two million 
pounds, and the assets at the end of the year stood at nearly 
eight millions. 

Never in its history was the Co-operative movement so vigorous 
as at the present time, and never was the faith of the agricul- 
turist in its efficiency so strong. Perhaps in the very strength 
of this faith there lies a source of weakness, or at least of potential 
disappointment. For there is a danger of Co-operation being 
made a fetish and giving rise to expectations which it is quite 
incapable of fulfilling. Quite recently a Prussian agrarian 
deputy appealed to his Government to give still more cordial 
help to the Co-operative societies by way of ‘‘ proving that the 
spirit of Christianity was not yet dead in the land,’’ while 
another deputy urged that a professorship of Co-operation should 
be set up in each of the agricultural colleges. While, however, 
the enthusiasts of the movement now and then carry their zeal 
to extremes, the actual work which Co-operation is doing for 
the agricultural class in a variety of ways is of untold value. 

The practical sympathy which the Central and State Govern- 
ments give to the Co-operative movement is naturally a sore 
grievance with the retail traders, and petitions to Parliament 
pleading for the restriction of the operations of Co-operative 
societies by legislative measures are of common occurrence. 
There is no doubt that the trade in agricultural machinery, 
manures, and other requisites has to a large extent passed out 
of private hands since the affiliation of the Co-operative societies 
in powerful unions enabled the farmer to purchase direct from 
the manufacturer, to the great advantage of his pocket. The 
middleman complains with reason that while the State exists 
by taxing him, it is, by supporting Co-operation, doing its best to 
extinguish him, and he contends that its action is all the more 
inconsiderate and unjustifiable since to the funds which are 


CO-OPERATION 307 


used for subsiding Co-operative societies and providing them with 
capital he is required to contribute. The plea is unanswerable, 
though it fails to carry conviction, for German Governments 
have never considered private interests when their sympathy has 
been won on behalf of works of recognised public utility. 


CHAPTER XVI 
THE POPULATION QUESTION 


The crusade against infantile mortality—The decline in the birth-rate—lIts 
effect on population counteracted by a decreasing death-rate—Vitality 
statistics of towns and country districts eompared—Natality and mortality 
rates of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Wiirtemberg—Causes of high infan- 
tile mortality—Action of the State and municipal authorities—Decline 
of natural feeding and its encouragement—The work of the infant dis- 
pensaries in the large towns—Public regulation of the milk supply— 
The care for children of illegitimate birth—The protection of mothers 
—Provisions of the Industrial Code on the subject—A scheme of mother- 
hood insurance—The Kaiserin Augusta Victoria House at Charlot- 
tenburg—The significance of the infant mortality crusade from the 
standpoint of population—Solicitude for youth of school age—The pioneer 
worth of Tiirk and Froébel—Children spared in Germany where women 
are spared in England—The factory laws and the employment of chil- 
dren—The doctor in the school—The anti-consumption crusade—Physical 
exercises and outdoor pastimes—Co-operation of the Social Democrats 
in social reform movements—Industrial legislation and the insurance laws. 


HOUGH there is little talk of national efficiency in Germany, 

a vast amount of effort is being directed, in systematic and 
well-reasoned ways, towards the production of a stronger and 
more vigorous race. Germany is showing wisdom in taking up 
the population question in the cradle, and endeavouring to ensure 
the health and virility of the stock at its source, instead of being 
content with merely patching up a decrepit manhood and woman- 
hood upon which neglect and deterioration have already done 
their worst. During the past ten years there has grown up an 
308 eae 


Meer ereny penn He enh RH Hh 


THE POPULATION QUESTION 309 


earnest crusade against infantile mortality which now covers the 
length and breadth of the land, and although it is undoubtedly 
true that Germany awakened but tardily to the importance of 
this question, the lost ground may soon be regained. 

Attention was first seriously arrested when the decline in the 
birth-rate was found to have become a settled factor in the 
population question, and it was seen that, in spite of the steady 
fall in the general death-rate for some years, the rate of infantile 
mortality showed little or no diminution. The birth-rate for 
the whole Empire reached the maximum figure in 1876, when it 
stood at 41:0 per 1,000 of the population (stillborn infants, about 
4 per cent. of all born, or 1°7 per 1,000 of the population, 
being here excluded). The highest figure before the French war 
had been 38 per 1,000, a figure which occurred five times 
during the preceding decade. Up to that time the rate had been 
a slowly ascending rate. Since 1876 the movement has been 
steadily downward, with the slightest possible break at the 
beginning of the ‘nineties. The lowest figure was reached in 
1905, viz., 33°0 living per 1,000 of the population, against 26°9 
in England and Wales. The general movement of the birth-rate 
may be shown by the following yearly averages, based on decennial 
periods :— 


1851-1860 ose duh vee 35°3 per 1,000 inhabitants. 
1861-1870 ae dat sit 37:2 5 4 
1871-1880 a ius ane 39°1 i iy 
1881-1890 ay ie wee 36°8 4 Ne 
1891-1900 eee vii oon 36:2 


” LP 


From 1900 forward the rate has decreased as follows :-— 


1900 ...  35°6 per 1,000. 1904 ....  34*1 per 1,000. 
POOR 877 |. 55 1905 33° m 
foe ao. |, OOH hikes Arn seen TN 
FOO Lk BBO.) Gy 


In some of the large towns the decline in the birth-rate has 
been still more marked. Thus Berlin had a rate of 45:4 per 
1,000 in 1876, after which the strong upward movement which 
followed the war was exhausted, and gave place to an equally 
strong decline, so that in 1905 the rate had fallen to 24°6 per 
1,000, or 2°5 below that of London (27:1). Had Berlin’s rate 
in 1876 continued there would have been born in 1905 98,000 
infants instead of 51,000. The highest and lowest rates in 


310 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Prussian ‘‘large’’ towns (i.e., towns with a population exceeding 
100,000) in 1906 were as follows :— 


Gelsenkirchen ae ea 50°6 Charlottenburg ... ona 22°5 
Bochum ies bie one 44°8 Schéneberg =" an 23°5 
Duisburg... Se one 43°6 Hanover... ope ti 23°7 
Dortmund ... ps vue 43-0 Wiesbaden eke one 24°4 
Essen vee bie bee 40°5 Crefeld ... re Gus 24°6 


The effect of this decreased birth-rate has, to some extent, 
been mitigated by the heavy fall in the general death-rate. The 
highest rates recorded during the second half of last century were 
30°6 per 1,000 (stillborn infants excluded) in 1866, 29°6 in 1871, 
and 29°0 in 1872. It was not until 1876 that a decided decline 
set in, but from that time, when the rate was 26°4, there has 
been a continuous fall until the lowest recorded rate was reached 
in 1906, viz., 18°2 per 1,000. Shown by decades the yearly 
average death-rates (stillborn infants excluded) have been as 
follows since 1850 :— 


1851-1860 eee ece eee eee eee 26'3 per 1,000. 
27°0 


IRE1—1870. 51 dike Ney ecea AN ND eee 7 
VS7I-1860  1as0./. Sion. as eemciac semis ancien tact a 
1881-1890 {0.0512 AT Se st ee 
18011900. |) sao. dete cn Worn eh eee eels te nn 


The rates since 1899 have been as follows :— 


1900 ... 221 per 1,000. 1904 ... 197 per 1,000. 
NONTGh eigen in S007 ors a 1905... , «eae 
COTY eae ire EL Wake 1906 4. | Jee 


1903 eee 20 ‘0 99 


The death-rates for 1904 and 1905 compared with 16°5 and 
15°5 in England and Wales. But the fall in the death-rate no 
longer quite counter-balances the decline in the rate of births. 
The excess of the latter on the average of the decade 1851 to 
1860 was 9 per 1,000 of the population; during the following 
decade the excess reached 10°2; during the year 1871-1880 it 
was 11°9; 1881-1890, 11°7; and 1891-1900, 13°9 per 1,000. 
There was a further rise in 1900 to 18°5, and in 1901 and 1902 
to 15:0 and 15'6, after which there came a fall to 18°9 in 1908, 
14°4 in 1904, and 13°2 in 1905, in which year the excess in 
England and Wales was 11°4 per 1,000. 

In Prussia the highest birth-rate is found in the three Eastern 
provinces of Silesia, West Prussia, and Posen, and the two 
Western provinces of Westphalia and Rhineland. The following 


THE POPULATION QUESTION 311 


has been the average natural increase per 1,000 mean population 
in the East and West respectively since 1890 :— 








1890-1895. 1895-1900, 1900-1905. 
Posen ed a = 18°7 20:1 19°8 
West Prussia ... ase 17°5 18-2 18°1 
Rhineland she oes 15:4 17°4 18°2 
Westphalia ee otk 18°5 20°9 22-2 


In the two Eastern provinces the population is predominantly 
Slavic, and in the two Western there is also a large Slavic 
element owing to immigration. The Prussian towns with the 
largest natural increase of population in 1904 were Gelsenkirchen 
31°0 per 1,000, Duisburg 24°8, and Essen 23°5, all colliery or 
steel and iron towns, while those with the smallest natural increase 
were Berlin with only 9:2 per 1,000, Halle 10°0, Stettin 10:1, 
Charlottenburg 10°38, Konigsberg 10°4, and Crefeld 10°7. 

At the same time the decreased mortality has been confined 
for the most part to persons of ripe years. Not only has there 
been no recent decrease in infantile mortality, but there has been 
an actual increase during the past fifty years. The rate for the 
entire Empire was 20°5 per cent. of all born alive in 1905, 19°6 
in 1904, 20°4 in 1903, 18°3 in 1902, and 20°7 in 1901. The 
rates in other European countries in recent years were as 
follows: United Kingdom (1907), 11°8 per cent.; Austria 
(1908), 21°5 per cent.; Italy (1905), 16°6 per cent.; Belgium 
(1905), 14°6 per cent. ; France (1906), 14°3 per cent.; Holland 
(1905), 18°1 per cent.; Switzerland (1905), 12°9 per cent. ; 
Denmark (1905), 12°1 per cent. ; Sweden (1904), 8°4 per cent. ; 
and Norway (1905), 8°1 per cent. There is, however, great 
inequality as between the various States of Germany. In 1904 
the highest infant mortality rates occurred in Saxe-Altenburg, 
25°9 per cent. of all born; Reuss, younger Line, 25°4 per cent. ; 
Bavaria, right of the Rhine, 25°0 per cent.; Saxony (kingdom), 
24°4 per cent.; Reuss, older Line, 24°3 per cent. ; Mecklen- 
burg Strelitz, 22°7 per cent.; Wurtemberg, 22°1 per cent. ; 
and Anhalt, 22°0 per cent. 

It is specially interesting to follow the natality and mortality 
rates of Prussia, since that State represents in population three- 


312 THE asidueanoinuaac ny OF MODERN GERMANY 


fifths of the Empire. The following have been the rates since 
the middle of last century :— 


Birth - rate per 
1,000 of the Popu- | General Death- | Infantile Mortal- 


Years. lation (exclusive | rate per 1,000 of | ity per cent. of 

of Stillbirths). the Population. Births. 
1851-1855 ose ose : } 19°43 
MORE MIRBO NI cto a i Sah wit 19-90 
1861-1865 cos eee x ‘ 20°82 
MBBBLRTOU wal okt sie Nk we te 21:36 
1871-1875 oes eee 88:80 27°70 22°36 
1876-1880 Apy. eee 39°20 25°40 20°45 
1881-1885 eee eee 37°40 25°40 20°90 
1886-1890 eee a 37°50 24:00 20°79 
1891-1895 eee bes 87°20 22:80 20°52 
1896-1900 ese eve 36°74 21:20 20:10 
1901 Ru eee ash 36°52 20°70 20:00 
1902* cee eee eee 35°85 19°30 17-20 
1903 eve eee bes 34°73 19°90 19°40 
1904 soe ie eos 35:04 19°50 18°49 
1905 nee re bes 33°50 19°60 19°80 


Thus the birth-rate declined during the period covered by these 
figures by about 4 per 1,000, and the general death-rate by 7 per 
1,000. Yet the decline in the death-rate was in no degree 
attributable to the greater care taken of infant life. If a still 
longer period be covered, it is found that while Prussia’s general 
death-rate fell from 26°90 per thousand of the population in 
1816-1820 to 19°60 per 1,000 in 1905, its infantile death-rate 
increased during this period from 16°90 to 19°80 per cent. of 
the births, the latter rate being higher than any recorded during 
the whole of the first half of last century. Of all important 
European countries save Austria and Russia, Prussia has the 
highest infantile mortality, and in the general death-rate only 
two further States are behind it, viz., Italy and Spain. 

Of the other three monarchies of the Empire, Bavaria 
reached its highest birth-rate during the years 1876-1880, viz., 
40°6 per 1,000 of the population, since when the rate has fallen 
to 84°5 per 1,000 in 1906. On the other hand, Bavaria had all 
through last century a high infantile mortality. Early in the 
century the rate was 28°4 per cent., and it increased in the 
’sixties to the maximum of 32°7, after which there was a steady 
decline until 25°7 per cent. was reached at the end of the 


* The heavy fall in infantile mortality in this year was attributed to the cold 
and rainy summer, 


THE POPULATION QUESTION 313 


century, and the rate in 1906 was 22°7. It is significant that 
the highest infantile mortality has always occurred in that 
portion of Bavaria which is right of the Rhine (Upper Bavaria, 
Central Franconia, and Swabia), which at one time had rates 
between 48 and 54 per cent., while Bavaria left of the Rhine 
(including Lower and Upper Franconia) seldom exceeded 20; it 
should be observed, however, that the rate of illegitimate births 
in the Right Rhine portion of the kingdom (viz., 13°7 per cent. 
of all births in 1905) is more than twice that in the rest of the 
country (5°6 per cent). 

Saxony’s birth-rate has fallen from its maximum of 48°4 per 
1,000 in the years 1876-1880 to 32 in 1905. Its infantile 
death-rate at the middle of last century was 25°3 per cent., 
rising to 28°7 in 1871-1875, and then falling again to 25:7 
in 1905, but the fluctuation has in general been small. 

Wurtemberg’s highest birth-rate was 43°7 per 1,000 in the 
years 1871-1875, and it fell to a minimum of 33°1 in 1905. 
Wurtemberg has always had a heavy infantile death-rate; in 
the Danubian districts it was as high as 44 per cent. in the 
middle of last century, and it is still 30 per cent., although 
taking the kingdom as a whole there was a decline from 32 per 
cent. at the beginning of last century to 25°4 and even 23°4 
per cent. at the end, while the rate in 1905 was 21°4 per 
cent. 

It may be accepted as a general rule that the rate of infantile 


mortality is proportionate 1 to the general standard of civilisation 


“prevalent.” Here racial characteristics and social habits, as well 
as material circumstances, enter into play. Hence it is not 
surprising to find that the conditions which exist in the pro- 
gressive West of Prussia, though industrial in character, are far 
more favourable to infantile life than are those in the agri- 
cultural East, with its strong Polish complexion. Thus the 
infantile mortality rates for the Western Provinces in 1905 
were: Schleswig-Holstein 16°5 per cent., Hanover 14°1, West- 
phalia 14°3, Hesse-Nassau 13:1, and Rhineland 16°9; while 
the rates for the Eastern Provinces were: East Prussia 23°0, 
West Prussia 24°8, Silesia 24°9, Posen 22°4, Brandenburg 23°7, 
and Pomerania 23°9. It does not appear that industrial towns 
as such have high infantile death-rates, for the mortality rather 
seems to be dependent on the character of the staple industries, 


314. THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


and especially on the degree to which female labour is employed. 
Another factor of great significance is the housing question. 
Almost invariably the highest infant mortality is found in those 
districts of a town in which the working classes specially live. 
Thus in the ‘‘ residential’’ as opposed to the industrial districts 
of Berlin the infant mortality in 1905 was 15:0 per cent., while in 
the districts chiefly inhabited by the working classes it was 23°8 
per cent., though in special districts of the city the rate was 
much higher. 

Germany’s position to-day is as follows. Of, roughly speak- 
ing, two million infants born alive each year (1,987,153 in 1905 
and 2,025,847 in 1904), over 400,000 (407,999 in 1905 and 
897,779 in 1904) die under the age of twelve months, a wastage 
of 20 per cent., though the rate a hundred years ago was only 
15 per cent. Sach a state of things was bound to create alarm in 
a country which attaches supreme importance to national defence. 

Although the crusade against infantile mortality is still in the © 
initial stages, experience has already shown the entire needless- 
ness of a great part of the sacrifice of life which has been going 
on unchecked for so many years. No sooner have remedial mea- 
sures been applied in any locality than a large decline in mortality 
has at once been effected, proving that the loss to the nation, 
under the age of twelve months, of one out of every five infants 
born has been unnecessary, the result of ignorance, apathy, and 
fatalism combined. To-day the old idea that the high mortality 
of infants of tender years is a wise provision of nature, intended 
to weed out the “‘ unfit,” is virtually obsolete in Germany. A 
very large part of this mortality has been proved to be due 
to conditions which are in the highest degree unnatural, and 
cannot therefore be regarded as falling in with any rational 
theory of selection—artificial feeding, fouled food, insanitary 
dwellings, absence of light and air, &c.—and it is held that 
to regard infants who perish through causes like these as. 
predoomed by nature to extinction is as sensible as to condemn 
as ‘‘unfit’’ the child who is thrown out of a window by @ 
drunken mother or burned to death in a locked-up room. 

The national war against this loss of life has been taken up 
by a number of separate forces working in different directions, 
yet all, with admirable wisdom, viewing their diverse efforts as 
part of one great movement towards a common objective, of 


THE POPULATION QUESTION 315 


_ which movement the Emperor and Empress have placed them- 
selves at the head. ‘‘It is a depressing fact,’’ wrote the 
Emperor to the executive committee of the Women’s Patriotic 
Association in Berlin (November 15, 1904), ‘‘ that wide circles 
of the population labour under anxiety about children of tender 
years. It is my earnest wish to see the efforts of the State 
authorities and of all the philanthropic agencies associated with 
_the Women’s Patriotic Association united for the amelioration 
of this evil. I confidently hope that the efficient organisation of 
the Association will, by judicious co-operation, be able to give 
powerful support to the measures adopted by the authorities, 
officials, and those immediately concerned.” 

Chief among the agencies and organisations active in the 
matter are the provincial and district administrative officials, 
the district medical officers, and the registrars (acting on the 
directions of the Staté Governments), sires municipal authorities, 
the various branches of the Women’s Patriotic Association and 
the Red Cross Association, and many special societies formed 
ad hoc in the large towns for the establishment of refuges, homes, 
dispensaries, and hospitals for mothers and infants, public créches 
and nurseries, milk depéts, &c. In this, as in most other great 
reform movements, such as the anti-consumption, temperance, 
housing, and school-doctor movements, the State is in the fore- 
front, setting an example of zeal and enterprise which public 
and private bodies are not slow to emulate. The Prussian 
Ministers of the Interior and of Education and Public Health 
issued a decree in 1905 requiring the Chief Presidents to call 
upon the registrars of births to afford all possible assistance to 
associations which are engaged in the combating of infantile 
mortality, to actively co-operate in the instruction of the people 
by lectures and publications, and in every way to use their 
influence for the reduction of the needless sacrifice of life. 
When some time ago the Women’s Patriotic Association 
arranged to circulate a million and a half leaflets on the 
feeding and management of infants the registrars of births 
were enjoined to do all they could to help in the work. Simi- 
larly the Bavarian Minister of the Interior has issued a decree 
to the District Governments urging them to increased activity 
in the same cause. They are asked to give special attention to 
the housing conditions and to the nursing and feeding of infants, 


316 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


and to this end are to induce the district and communal authori- _ 
ties, and the medical and poor law doctors, to unite upon well- ~ 
devised schemes of reform. The measures specified are the 
establishment of infant dispensaries and clinics, kitchens and 
milk depéts, the encouragement of natural feeding by the offer 
of money rewards and the supply of milk, and the better 
supervision of foster and illegitimate children. 

Very wisely it has at the outset been recognised that mere 
administrative measures, however efficacious and necessary, are 
incapable alone of carrying this humane crusade to a triumphant 
issue. The most potent influence favourable to the preservation 
of infant life is that which is exerted in the home by the mother _ 
_ herself. Here many municipalities and still more philanthropic 
societies have found a great sphere of usefulness. The crux of 
the question is the right feeding and nursing of infants during 
the first twelve months of their life. Statisties show that if 
that dangerous bridge is safely crossed the chances of safety 
for a long time are enormously multiplied. Great stress is 
everywhere laid upon natural feeding, for it has been found 
that the mortality of hand-fed infants is from five to six times 
that of breast-fed. Here there is a great leeway to be made up. 
The suckling of infants has gone entirely out of fashion in whole 
districts and almost whole States, and especially is this the case 
in South Germany. In connection with several censuses a 
careful inquiry has been made into the subject in Berlin. In 
1885 of every 1,000 infants enumerated 552 were suckled and 
339 fed on cow’s milk, in 1890 the corresponding numbers were 
507 and 489, in 1895 the proportions were 431 and 452, and in 
1900 885 were suckled and 517 artificially fed. Thus during 
fifteen years the proportion of breast-fed infants fell from one- 
half to a third. The effect of the different modes of feeding upor 
the death-rate is shown by the following table :-— 


Of every 1,000 Infants of the same Class there Died at the Ages Stated :— 

















Suckled. Hand-Fed. Fed in Both Ways. 
Year, Ae TT TT NAR ev ef eo 
vant 1 Month. | 2 Months.| 1 Month. | 2 Months.} 1 Month. | 2 Months, 
L890) 50. aye 22°9 9°26 147°9 77°4 115°0 88°2 
1891 ... eee 20°45 7:57 170°7 89°4 128°0 54:15 
1895 ... ee 20°16 7°30 112°8 62°9 88:2 50°9 


1895 ... ED WARM Ee | 7°40 111:0 54°5 54:0 38°5 


THE POPULATION QUESTION | 317 


Again, in the Westerburg Circle of Westphalia, containing 82 
rural townships, it was found that 4,863 infants survived birth 
during the five years 1899-1903, and of these 8,929, or 90°05 
per cent., were suckled, and 434, or 9°95 per cent., artificially 
fed. Of the suckled infants 8°5 per cent. died under one year 
and 2°8 per cent. under two years of age, while the mortality at 
these ages in the case of the artificially-fed infants was 20°0 and 
5°5 per cent. respectively. 

Similarly an investigation made in Cologne, a town with a 
high infantile mortality, showed that only 398 mothers out of 
a thousand suckled their children; while at Solingen, a town 
with a low infantile death-rate, 704 out of a thousand mothers 
suckled their children. 

The feeding question has been seriously taken up by the 
infant. dispensaries which have been established in many towns 
by the municipalities either alone or in conjunction with philan- 
thropic bodies. Berlin has seven of these dispensaries, dis- 
tributed in the working-class districts of the city, each under 
the care of a specialist in infant maladies, assisted by qualified 
doctors and nurses; Charlottenburg has five, and other large 
towns have dispensaries in number more or less proportionate 
to their industrial population. While these dispensaries never 
work on narrow lines, the principle generally followed in Berlin 
is that applicants for gratuitous advice and help must give proof 
of need. ‘The idea is to give preference to the people of small 
means, those who are in receipt of poor-relief, foster parents, 
and the guardians of orphans, illegitimate children, &c. ‘‘ At 
the dispensaries,’ runs one of the regulations, ‘‘ every mother 
in needy circumstances receives free advice as to the judicious 
feeding and nursing of her weak or sickly child. If in need 
mothers who suckle their infants receive support in money, and 
other mothers receive sterilised milk either free or at a reduced 
price.” Information is required of each applicant as to the 
legitimacy or otherwise of the child, the occupation of the 
father, the earnings of the father and mother, and the size, 
rent, and sanitary condition of the dwelling. ‘‘ The cliéntéle of 
the dispensaries,’ states a recent report, ‘‘ consists in the main 
of working-class families, and indeed almost entirely of unskilled 
labourers with a usual income of from 20s. to 23s. per week. 
The fathers have read in the newspapers about the dispensaries, 


318 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


and they send their wives in order to receive advice in case of 
sickness, though often without this special reason. Then one 
woman recommends the dispensaries to another, and in addition 
the lady superintendents, acting under the police and the 
‘Housekeeping Associations,’ send people to the dispensary, 
while foster parents come in large numbers. The giving of 
milk for children at a low price and the grant of money or milk 
to mothers who suckle their infants have proved a strong tie 
between the institution and the public, and cause the majority 
of the applicants to follow the advice given willingly.”’ The 
plan is adopted of following the advice given at the dispensary 
by a visit from a sister for the purpose of inspecting the home 
conditions and of inquiring whether the mode of treatment 
prescribed has been followed. In this way defects in nursing 
and feeding are pointed out. But this visitation of the homes 
of the clients does not relieve the latter of the obligation to 
attend at the dispensary once a week so long as the doctor 
requires it. In the principal dispensary Dr. Neumann, the 
practitioner in charge, gives monthly demonstrations in nursing 
to women of the working class. 

The Berlin dispensaries are not intended for the actual 
treatment of sick children, but this wider sphere belongs to the 
children’s clinic which has been at work for ten years at 
Hamburg, and which has of late extended its mission to the 
systematic instruction of mothers in the right feeding and nursing 
of their infants. Four doctors, assisted by four sisters, are 
engaged in the work, and some 3,000 children are treated 
yearly. The municipality of Berlin supports lying-in hospitals 
for women in needy circumstances, homes for similar women 
who are nursing young children, and forest convalescent homes 
for mothers and infants, and it also subsidises créches con- 
ducted by philanthropic societies. At Schoneberg, near Berlin, 
a maternity home has been opened for the reception of single 
women during the first three months after confinement. The 
help given in all these ways from the public funds does not rank 
as poor-relief, so that no electoral disqualification is caused to 
the heads of families concerned. 

At the Charlottenburg’s children’s dispensaries the greatest 
importance is attached to natural feeding. The town offers to 
women about to be confined, whether married or not, for a period 


THE POPULATION QUESTION 319 


of four weeks, free milk and dinner daily, or 6s. in money per 
week, supplemented later by premiums on suckling and other 
support if necessary. The result has been a great decrease in 
infant mortality. While of 958 infants examined during the first 
10} months’ operation of the dispensaries (July 15, 1905, to 
March 31, 1906), not 20 per cent. had been suckled, of the 2,007 
treated during the second year 48 per cent. were so fed. The 
result was that while of the children treated in 1905 8°4 per cent. 
died within the first year, during 1906 the mortality at that age 
amongst 970 suckled children under treatment were only 2°9 per 
cent.; that amongst 310 suckled and hand-fed infants was 
3°5 per cent.; and that amongst 727 entirely hand-fed infants 
was 10°7 per cent. The rate of mortality under twelve months 
of all infants treated was 5°8 per cent., though the infantile 
mortality rate for the town at large was 15°6 per cent. An 
infants’ clinic has also been opened in Charlottenburg with 
municipal help. At Munich a food depdt has been established 
at which any woman who certifies her need by bringing with 
her a young infant can have a free meal every noon. 

From insisting on the importance of good milk both for 
_ mothers and infants to the adoption of measures to safeguard the 
quality of the milk supplied is a natural step, and it is a step 
which many German municipalities have taken. Police control 
of the milk supply has been exercised for years in German 
towns, but it has proved very inadequate. It was possible to 
detect and to prevent the grosser forms of adulteration and im- 
purity, but it has not been possible to ensure the supply to the 
working classes of a thoroughly hygienic and nutritious article, 
nor has police control been deliberately directed to that end. 
Hence the demand for close medical supervision, exercised no 
longer in a perfunctory way by the police authority, but by the 
municipal administration. Some of the more progressive towns 
have even established milk depots for the sale to mothers of the 
working class of pure sterilised milk at a reasonable price. 
Halle, Wiesbaden, Cologne, and Stettin may specially be 
instanced. Many large employers of labour are emulating the 
public authorities in this respect. There are scores of factories 
in various parts of Germany, with ‘‘ social welfare’ departments 
conducted by skilled and zealous directors, which supply to their 
employees both for use in the works and at home milk of a 


320 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


guaranteed and tested quality at a lower price than that of the 
retail traders. Not only so, but this factory milk is very popular 
and is largely bought. 

Particular attention is being given to the fate of infants of 
illegitimate birth. The importance of this aspect of the question 
will be understdod when it is said that the rate of mortality 
under one year amongst illegitimate children is nearly twice that 
amongst legitimate. There are born every year in Germany 
175,000 illegitimate children, equal to about one-eleventh of the 
total births, though the rate of illegitimacy varies greatly in 
different States from a minimum in 1905 of 6°9 per cent. of the 
births in Hesse to 13°4 per cent. in Saxony (comparing only the 
larger States). Of these illegitimate infants nearly one-third die 
under the age of one year, viz., 32°6 per cent. in 1905, 31°4 per 
cent. in 1904, and 32°7 per cent. in 1903. The highest rates 
of mortality mongst illegitimate infants occurred in 1905 in 
Bremen, 35°7 per cent.; Saxe-Altenburg, 35 per cent.; Prussia, 
34°4 per cent.; Saxony, 33°1 per cent.; and Alsace-Lorraine, 
31°9 per cent. In some of the provinces of Prussia, however, 
these rates were exceeded, e.g., West Prussia, 44°0 per cent. ; 
Posen, 43°1 per cent.; East Prussia, 37.1 per cent.; Silesia, 
37°3 per cent.; and Brandenburg, 37°9 per cent. (the first four 
provinces having a predominant Polish population). It was found 
in Bremen that of the legitimate infants born in 1901, 20 per cent. 
died within four years, but of the illegitimate 20 per cent. died 
within the first three months; at the end of one year twice as 
many illegitimate as legitimate children had died, and the same 
proportions held good in the second year. An investigation made 
at Konigsberg showed that during the years 1877 to 1905 
the deaths in the first year of children of illegitimate birth 
were almost twice as numerous as those of legitimate birth, 
though the placing of illegitimate children under police super- 
vision has greatly diminished the mortality amongst them since 
1881. 

The institutions which have been called into existence as part 
of the crusade against infantile mortality do not distinguish 
between legitimate and illegitimate children, unless, indeed, by 
giving special-attention to the latter, as standing in the greatest 
need of protection. Some of the large towns, taking a broad and 
generous view of the question, have even undertaken, on the prin- 


THE POPULATION QUESTION 321 


ciple sanctioned in other cases by our own Poor Law, the legal 
guardianship of all infants of illegitimate birth, with a view to 
the systematic supervision of their nursing and later up-bringing 
and incidentally also of apportioning paternal rosponsibility for 
maintenance where it should properly fall. These measures 
thave added nothing to the municipal burdens, for neither fathers 
mor mothers of illegitimate infants are relieved of their obliga- 
‘tions; on the contrary, it has been found that a municipality, 
free from influence and eager to do its duty to unmarried mothers 
and through them to the community, is able to bring shirking 
seducers to book where their victims fail. Charlottenburg and 
Leipzig are among the towns which have undertaken this humane 
and judicious responsibility, and from both places it is reported 
that the infants, the mothers, and not least the fathers, are 
looked after better than before. 

But at these efforts the crusade does not stop. A strong 
endeavour is being made to increase the protection given to 
mothers by factory legislation, and to extend it to all classes of 
‘women workers. It is held that if the child is to be healthy 
the mother must be healthy too. Good feeding and nursing, 
though important, are not everything; and the most scientific 
nursing will avail but little if the child comes into the world with 
its chances of life diminished owing to the unfavourable conditions 
of its birth. The Industrial Code does not overlook the necessity 
for protecting mothers who anticipate confinement, but it is held 
that the protection does not go far enough. The law named 
provides (section 187) that during four weeks after confinement 
women may not work at all in factories and workshops subject 
to inspection, and during two further weeks only on the strength 
of a medical certificate ; and all this time a woman may receive 
sick benefit if she has belonged to a communal sick fund for 
six months. Women expecting confinement may also be given 
sick benefit for six weeks, subject to the same condition, in the 
event of incapacity to work, and free nursing and medicine 
may be added. It is now proposed to extend these pro-: 
visions. Professor Mayet advocates a system of benefits for 
women in childbirth extending over six weeks preceding and six 
weeks following confinement, and including not only the full 
‘allowances payable under the Sickness Insurance Law, but two 


premiums of 25s. each for natural feeding, one claimable after 
22 


822 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


six weeks and the other at the end of a year. He estimates 
that the cost of these benefits would be six and three-quarter 
million pounds per annum, yet contends that the results would 
be worth the expenditure, for were his plan carried out 80 per 
cent. of the present infantile mortality would be saved, an 
enormous amount of sickness would be prevented in later years, 
and 20,000 additional efficient men would be available for the 
army annually. 

Active propagandism on the same lines is being carried on by 
the Motherhood Protection League, an organisation which has 
been called into existence by the crusade against infantile 
mortality. It is the purpose of the League ‘‘ to improve the 
position of women as mothers in legal, economic, and social 
matters, and especially to protect unmarried mothers and their 
children from economic and moral danger and to remove the 
prevailing prejudices against them.” It is a leading principle of 
the League that no question is asked as to the antecedents of 
mothers and children needing help: above its door is written the 
motto, ‘‘ We are not here to judge.” The League agitates, by 
literature, the Press, and lectures, for the reform of the legal 
position of unmarried mothers and their children, with a view to 
alleviating the stigma under which they live; it helps such 
mothers both before and after confinement and endeavours to 
place them in a position to support themselves and their 
offspring ; but its largest demand is for a thoroughgoing scheme 
of ‘‘ motherhood insurance,’’ linked on to the present system of 
industrial sickness insurance. It would first extend sickness 
insurance to all wage-earners without exception, to agricultural 
and forest labourers of both sexes, to domestic servants, and to 
workers in the home industries, and would then cover the cost 
of a special motherhood insurance by increasing the contributions 
payable by workpeople and employers, retaining the same pro- 
portions’ as now, viz., two-thirds and one-third respectively, 
yet adding a State subsidy. The benefit is to extend over a 
period of twelve weeks, six weeks before and six weeks after 
confinement, and is to include full wages, free midwife and 
medical attendance, and premiums on suckling. It is also 
proposed that Sickness Funds shall be empowered to establish, 
or by loans assist others to establish, advice agenzies for 
mothers and women expecting confinement, as well as maternity 


THE POPULATION QUESTION 323 


homes, and to grant help towards the proper feeding of 
infants. | 

A more original demand is that the labour protective legisla- 
tion shall be so amended as to require every factory or large 
workshop employing female workers to set apart a room as a 
nursery, and to arrange for intervals during which mothers 
may feed their infants. Certainly the League has no fear of 
expense, and although its scheme would cost some fourteen 
million pounds a year, it is able to point to the dictum of the 
present Emperor, that ‘‘ The prohibition of the employment of 
women during the period of childbirth is closely connected with 
the elevation of the race, and in such a matter money should 
not be considered.”’ 

It is not likely that schemes like these have any hope of 
success in the present generation, yet they are significant as 
showing the importance attached to the question of race efficiency 
in Germany. _ Already the League’s vigorous propagandism has 
produced a great impression on the public mind. 

Meantime, private action is doing voluntarily to a small extent 
what can only be done on a large scale by legislative measures. 
Many employers already incur considerable expense in encourag- 
ing mothers to stay away from work as long as the needs of their 
newly-born children require. One employer at Munchen-Gladbach, 
in the Rhenish textile district, pays such mothers 2s. per day for 
thirteen weeks after the expiration of the six weeks’ sickness 
insurance benefit on condition that they remain at home and 
devote themselves to the nursing of their infants. A novel experi- 
ment has for several years been tried in a large factory near 
Hanover, where a nursery has been equipped to which the 
infants of mothers employed in the factory are brought so that 
they may be fed during the day in nature’s wholesome way. 
Quite recently this idea has been developed in two suburbs of 
Berlin, Schoneberg and Weissensee, where factory owners have 
been required by ordinance of the Home Minister to provide 
rooms in which mothers may feed their infants. The munici- 
palities have agreed to bear all attendant expense. 

One further outcome of this movement must be mentioned, 
and in some ways it is the most remarkable of all. On Decem- 
ber 8, 1907, there was laid in Charlottenburg the foundation- 
stone of the Kaiserin Augusta Victoria House. This is the 


324 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


name of a physiological research institute which will serve as a 
central agency for the entire infantile mortality crusade in 
Germany. There the best ways of feeding and nursing infants 
will be investigated, children’s doctors and nurses will be 
trained, ‘‘infantile hygiene ”’ in all its aspects will be studied 
and popularised, and the latest discoveries and inventions of 
science useful in the service of this great work will be made 
available to every town and village in the Empire. The 
Empress gave the impetus which has called this unique project 
into being, and for that reason it bears her name. The town 
of Charlottenburg has given a large site of 3% acres, valued 
at £20,000, behind the Castle Park, and the cost of the building 
is estimated at £50,000, and of furnishing at £10,000, though 
these estimates will in all probability be largely exceeded, while _ 
the yearly costs of maintenance are estimated at £5,000. 
Already a national fund of £90,000 has been raised, a yearly 
subsidy of £1,000 is expected from the Prussian Government, 
and some of the other Governments, as well as many municipal 
bodies, will also help the scheme. With its completion will be 
realised the concluding words of an Imperial Message on this 
subject which was published three years ago: ‘‘It will be 
possible to check the high infantile mortality not only by 
removing recognised evils but by more persistent scientific 
research, and by the widening of our knowledge in the sphere of 
the natural and artificial feeding of infants.’ The project is a 
truly magnanimous illustration of Germany’s belief that science 
was intended to be the handmaid of civilisation. 

It must be added, to the praise of the women of Germany, that 
in all the large towns many of the educated and leisured of their 
number give ungrudgingly of their time and ability to this great 
work of mercy and of national benefit. Not only so, but in order 
that their co-operation may be of a wise and helpful kind they 
are ready to organise and attend preparatory classes in which to 
equip themselves with physiological, medical, and hygienic 
knowledge, and the authority which that knowledge confers. The 
members of the Women’s Patriotic Society regularly hold courses 
of lectures for the instruction of mothers of the working class in 
nursing and feeding and in general household management. 

The importance to Germany of this life and health crusade 
will be understood when the rates of mortality which have already 


THE POPULATION QUESTION 320 


been referred to are borne in mind. Assuming that the birth- 
rate continues to fall for some time, as in all probability it will 
do, there is yet reason to believe, judging by the improvement 
shown in recent years, that the greater expectation of life of 
adults will alone counteract this deficiency, in which case the 
reduction in infantile mortality would represent a clear gain to 
the population. At the present time the deaths of children 
under twelve months in Germany are about eight to nine per 
hundred born more than in the United Kingdom. Should this 
leakage alone be stopped, and no more, an estimate which must 
be regarded as a very moderate one, there would be implied an 
annual addition to Germany’s population of a hundred and forty 
thousand, making the total increase little short of a million 
per annum. 

But this care for the health and welfare of the coming genera- 
tion by no means stops at infancy. A multitude of agencies 
work in the interest of youth at every stage. Professor von 
Kirchenheim, of Heidelberg, recently summarised these multi- 
farious endeavours in a sentence: ‘‘ Our age occupies itself more 
than formerly with the health and physical efficiency of youth, 
both during the years before and after school age, and the recent 
decades have created quite a new order of measures whose aim is 
to win back the neglected, forsaken, demoralised, and even the 
already criminal youth—a fund of national strength now half or 
wholly lost.’’ Nextin order tothe dispensaries, créches, and other 
agencies which in growing numbers devote themselves to the care 
of infants, come the day nurseries, play-schools, and similar institu- 
tions maintained in all the large towns for the reception of children 
too young for admission to the kindergartens proper. Berlin took 
the lead in this work more than a hundred years ago. As early as 
the beginning of the nineteenth century a well-known education 
reformer and member of the municipal school administration, 
Herr von Turk, established nurseries in which children between 
the ages of three and six years were received during the day 
hours. They were kindergartens of a very primitive type, for not 
only was there no teaching, but there wereno games. Nurseries 
of the kind still exist, but in general they have given place to a 
higher and more intelligent conception of the needs of childhood. 

Some of the modern nurseries are known as “ play-schools,”’ 
and the name sufticiently explains their character, for recreation is 


326 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


the chief concern. Later came the ‘‘ schools for small children ” 
(Kleinkinderschulen), which were first established “by religious 
bodies, and were accordingly conducted upon a religious basis, 
and in close touch with the churches; they paid due attention 
to the physical and recreative needs of the children, but their 
educational value was slight. A distinct era in popular educa- 
tion was opened when Frobel began the kindergartens which 
have ibeen so largely copied from Germany by this and other 
countries and developed on many progressive lines. Frobel 
lived from 1782 to 1852, and during the later period of his life 
he devoted himself entirely to the working out of his kinder- 
garten theories. He proceeded from the nurseries of Turk in 
Berlin, with which he was familiar, yet not satisfied, since 
they lacked educational purpose. His idea was to train the 
faculties of the children by intelligent employments, for which 
reason he first called his nursery schools ‘‘ occupation schools,” 
and only later kindergartens, by which term he sought to 
popularise the idea of nature-training. Observation teaching, 
narrative and repetition, play, music, song, bodily exercises, 
simple hand-work, gardening, and the care of animals were the 
means by which Frobel endeavoured to awaken the dormant 
nature of the child, to rationalise its instincts, and to develop in 
it the idea of unity with its fellows which constitutes the social 
sense. These kindergartens are still carried on under various 
names, and form part of the official primary school system in 
many German towns. 

It is when the child has passed into the care of the public 
education authority, however, that the solicitude for its welfare is 
shown most systematically. There is no reason to believe that 
England values its childhood and youth less than other countries, 
yet it must be confessed that its concern for them is often shown 
in very curious and unconvincing ways. At the moment these 
lines are being written (December, 1907) a controversy is raging 
in certain of the London newspapers regarding the ejection of 
juvenile and other toysellers from the public pavements. In 
one of these newspapers the following paragraph appears :— 

‘The toysellers of Holborn were to-day faced with a problem 
—How to get a free breakfast, and at the same time retain 
their ‘ pitch.’ All the 250 hawkers who had secured positions 
were given tickets for a meal, but, much as they needed the 


THE POPULATION QUESTION 327 


meal, they needed the trade more, and some of them gave up 
their breakfast tickets to their less fortunate brethren. In other 
instances little brothers and sisters held the pitches while the 
vendors secured the meal. Three children watched one square 
of pavement, where a tray had been set down, for over an hour. 
The foremost of them was ‘ Tiny Tim’ in real life. His shoes 
were out at the toes, and his clothes ragged, but he thrust his 
hands stolidly into his much-ventilated knickerbockers and 
looked as happy as possible, in spite of the rain. But the little 
mites, who served a big brother, did not go unrewarded,” &c. 

Such an employment of children as is here hinted at could 
not by any possibility occur in Germany; the law would 
not allow it, public opinion would not tolerate it, and it 
may even be questionable whether the parental sense would 
sanction it. 

A German visiting a large English town is invariably shocked 
at the sight of miserably clad boys and girls of tender years 
hawking newspapers and matches in the public streets, just as an 
Englishman visiting Germany is shocked at the hard and un- 
feminine work which is often allotted to women there. The 
repugnance of both is quite sincere, though as a rule neither is 
conscious of the fact that there is plenty of room for broom work 
at his own door. Broadly speaking, Hngland spares its women 
where Germany spares its children; each does well, but the 
application of a humanitarian spirit in both directions is the 
ideal thing, and neither country has arrived at that stage of 
altruism. » Several significant facts may be noted in relation to 
the protection of childhood in Germany. The legal age of 
admission to full employment in factories and workshops is 
fourteen years, though on the production of efficiency certificates 
children may be employed for not more than six hours daily at 
the age of thirteen, yet of the 5,607,657 industrial workers 
subject to inspection in 1905 only 10,245, or under 0°2 per cent., 
were below fourteen years, and in some States there were none. 
To show the progress which has been made in this respect it 
may be stated that in 1875 10 per cent. (88,000 out of a total of 
880,500) of the factory workers were between twelve and fourteen 
years of age. On the other hand, according to the report of the 
Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for 1904 the children 
under fourteen years employed in English factories and workshops 


328 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


as half-timers formed 0°8 per cent. of all workers (88,997 out of 
4,898,961). At the same time there is reason to believe that a 
serious exhaustion of juvenile strength takes place in the un- 
regulated home industries of Germany. Further, from the age 
of six the child of the people attends the primary school for 
seven or eight years, and in many cases he is required to attend 
a continuation school several years longer. In most of the large 
towns the scholar from first to last receives free systematic 
medical care at the hands of the school doctors. It begins with 
a thorough examination on admission, and the health record thus. 
opened is continued throughout the whole period of school life, 
so that the child is under constant medical supervision until it 
reaches the working age. Many towns have gone further, and 
have established dental surgeries, and attached eye and ear 
specialists to the primary schools. 

The anti-consumption crusade has also been extended to the 
schools. Until several years ago all the endeavours directed 
against the ravages of this disease were confined to adults, with 
the result that while the general rate of mortality from tubercu- 
losis fell in Prussia to the extent of 33 per cent. in the course of 
twenty-five years, it was found to be increasing in the case of 
children under twelve years. Dr. Kirschner, Chief Medical 
Councillor of the Prussian Department of Public Health, stated 
at the International Congress for School Hygiene, held in 
London in August, 1907, that ‘‘of all transmittable maladies 
to which children succumb in school age, tuberculosis accounts 
for 60 per cent. in the case of girls and 40 per cent. in the case 
of boys.’’ Attention is now being given to the children, both in 
the schools and by means of special dispensaries for consump- 
tives, maintained by the municipalities and philanthropic 
societies, and in this way a prophylactic work of untold value 
is being done. The Prussian Government has also established 
quarantine institutions at the seaside for the reception of 
teachers suffering from tuberculosis, with a view to affording 
them the best possible chance of recovery, yet also to protecting 
the scholars against risk. This work amongst sickly children is 
admirably supported by a network of public and private agencies 
for feeding under-nourished scholars, as well as by forest schools 
for the delicate, holiday colonies, and tramping parties. It is 
also worthy of note that many school authorities are doing their 


THE POPULATION QUESTION — 329 


best to discourage the giving of alcohol to children, a practice 
which still widely prevails in Germany. In Berlin a tractate 
setting forth reasons for withholding alcohol from the young is 
given to the parents of every child newly registered on the school 
books. 

Finally, increasing attention is being given to physical exer- 
cises and outdoor pastimes, a branch of school hygiene in which, 
in spite of their love of mild gymnastic drill, German schools 
have hitherto been very deficient. The new standpoint was 
defined as follows by Herr Dominicus, a member of the Muni- 
cipal Executive of Strassburg, at a congress on public hygiene 
in that town in 1907 :— 

‘‘'The German workman is far behind the English workman 
in the sport movement, and the reason is to be found in the 
unfavourable conditions as to labour and wages which prevail in 
Germany as compared with England. It is a common thing in 
England for factories to close early in the afternoon (of Satur- 
day), so that the workpeople are able to devote themselves to 
sport for the rest of the day. In Germany work is too intensive 
to allow of any time being given on weekdays to play.* This 
circumstance explains why German workmen take such a small 
part in sports. Our workmen have not learned games in their 
youth, and hence when grown up they are unable to follow them. 
The town building plans of the future must allow sufficient space 
for playgrounds, and both during the school term and in the 
holidays the children must be systematically taken to these 
playgrounds. For the children attending continuation schools 
games should be obligatory on Sunday afternoons. But above 
all the State should by law reduce the hours of labour, so that 
the workers may be given the opportunity of taking part in 
outdoor pastimes.” ¢ 

During recent years increasing attention has been given to 
the organisation of children’s games. Many of the larger towns 
have laid out in’ cétitral positions, easily accessible by children 
of the working and poorer classes, special playgrounds, with 
athletic contrivances for the older children and simpler resources 
of amusement, even to sandheaps and spades, for the infants. 
- Similar arrangements are also provided in many of the colonies 


* The German factory seldom closes before five o’clock on Saturday; gene- 
rally it continues until six, and in many districts work is prolonged until seven. 


330 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


‘of workmen’s dwellings erected by philanthropic building 
societies. The Municipal Council of Berlin throws open a 
number of the schoolyards as playgrounds during the holidays, 
and latterly the plan has been adopted of taking children of both 
sexes daily to the fields and forest outside the town, there to 
ioin in games from morning until evening. Several hundred 
pounds a year are found sufficient to pay for these vacation 
games. The town of Charlottenburg has even bought a wood- 
land playground for its children at a cost of £40,000. 

It is interesting to know that no class of society co-operates 
more actively and intelligently in these various efforts to safe- 
guard the health and vigour of youth than the Social Democrats. 
There is a widespread opinion abroad thatthe German Socialist — 
wastes his energies too lavishly upon the pursuit of shadowy 
schemes of social reformation, upon political chimeras and 
pedantic discussions of economic impossibilities. No doubt 
much time is spent in these ways, yet in the domain of 
municipal politics, and in all movements which bear on the 
‘‘condition of the people’’ problem, the Socialists are singularly 
practical and irrepressibly enthusiastic. The zeal and the deep 
sense of responsibility with which the local leaders and Press of 
Socialism have taken up the national health crusade in all its 
aspects deserve frank and cordial recognition. Here their prac- 
tice strangely belies their precept; for while the theory of 
Socialism overlooks the individual and assumes that society 
can be transformed by wholesale methods, the attitude of the 
Socialists who are found in increasing numbers on public and 
philanthropic bodies shows that they are in no doubt that the 
family is the national unit, and that physical and moral refor- 
mation is an individual and not a collective process. 

Not only so, but in spite of all their advocacy of the State 
training of children and of the loosening of the marriage tie the 
Socialists are among the foremost friends of childhood and of 
home culture. A recent conference of Social Democratic women, 
held at Mannheim, discussed the question of the ill-treatment of 
children, and ‘‘ called upon all comrades to make it their duty to 
earnestly combat such atrocities.’”’ In some towns Socialist 
Children’s Protection Societies exist for the purpose of bringing 
to light and to justice any evasions of the laws relating to the 
welfare of children. A well-known Gerinan labour journal wrote 


THE POPULATION QUESTION 331 


recently, ‘‘ The workman’s child of to-day is the workman of to- 
morrow. Hence whatever is done to-day for the children, in 
order to preserve them in health, will return a high interest in 
later years.” In this spirit the Socialist party is everywhere 
loyally co-operating with the ‘‘ burgher’”’ classes—if not always 
side by side, still as a battalion in the same army of reform— 
in the various efforts which are comprehended in the great 
movement known as “ social hygiene.” 

The.efforts which.the.State-and public bodies are making to 
promote the health and maintain the efficiency of the workers of 
maturer years—as by the insurance laws, the system of hospitals, 
convalescent homes, and sanatoria of all kinds, &c.—are inci- 
dentally referred to in other parts of this book, and have been 
described before for the benefit of English readers.* It must 
suffice to say in conclusion that the two movements, one con- 
cerned with youth and the other with age, are unquestionably 
achieving a work of great national value. In the early years of 
its epoch of industry Germany undoubtedly drew unduly upon the 
physical powers of its workers. Excessive hours of labour, under- 
payment, insanitary factories and workshops, the over-working 
of women and children, and bad housing are evils which Germany 
has no more been spared than other industrial countries, but 
these evils have been resolutely faced, and since the era 
of social reform opened in 1881 the conditions of industrial 
life have been immensely improved. Speaking of the insurance 
laws particularly, the late Imperial Minister for the Interior, 
Count Posadowsky, who described himself as a ‘‘ Minister for 
social policy,” stated in the Reichstag on February 6, 1906, 
‘‘The great progress marked by our insurance laws is that in 
place of poor-relief we have given the workmen a right, a right 
which he has acquired through his participation in the contribu- 
tions. I believe that we shall never again deviate from that 
system in Germany. To those who attack our social-political 
legislation because the working classes are ungrateful, I would 
answer that no State passes laws for the sake of obtaining grati- 
tude. Further, it is necessary to ask what sort of conditions 
would have been developed if since the time the Imperial 


* The monograph on ‘“‘The German’ Workman: a Study in National 
Efficiency,” by the present author (London: P. 8S. King & Son, 1906), deals 
solely with this question. 


332 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Rescript (of 1881) was issued nothing had been done for the 
workers, in spite of the great expansion of our industry.” 

As to the factory legislation and regulations in general, not 
only do they afford to children and juveniles a greater measure 
of protection, in regard to hours and other conditions of work, 
than is enforced by the English Factory Acts, but many of their 
provisions for ensuring the health, comfort, and safety of all 
workers go beyond the limits which are thought sufficient in this 
country. On this question it is interesting to read a German 
working-class opinion. ‘‘ Although the legal protection of the 
workers in Germany still leaves much to be desired,’’ reports the 
deputation of Trade Union officials which visited English indus- 
trial towns in 1906, ‘‘ it appears in general to be more advanced 
—excluding the legal status of labour—than in England. The 
contrivances for protecting machinery which we saw in the metal 
goods and textile factories were extremely defective ; dressing 
and washing rooms are also more numerous in Germany. In 
neither of the three coal-mines visited did arrangements for 
washing exist at all. The workmen go home dirty, so that the 
miners of the Rhenish Westphalian colliery district, who both 
change their clothes and take a bath after every shift, are at a 
great advantage. In the blast furnaces and shipbuilding yards 
the workmen were exposed to the full force of wind and weather, 
where in Germany they would for the most part be under cover, 
or at least be protected against rain.’”’* German employers 
find the cost of this labour legislation a heavy burden, and many 
of them grumble freely, yet those who look beyond the interests 
of the present recognise that what is good for the workman is 
ultimately good for industry and for capital, and it is from this 
far-sighted standpoint that the Government has consistently 
proceeded in developing its policy of ‘‘ labour protection,” and 
will develop it further. 

Speaking of the tasks of the present Reichstag on February 
26, 1907, Prince Bulow said, ‘‘ I would especially like to empha- 
sise the fact that the struggle [in the elections which had just 
taken place| was not aimed against the German workman but 
against political and revolutionary Social Democracy. The 
federal Governments, the burgher parties, and this assembly will 
prove this to the German workman by the continuance of that 

* ‘ Gewerkschaftliche Studien in England,” p. 26. | 


THE POPULATION QUESTION ~ 833 


social legislation in which Germany up to the present has led all 
other countries.” Political parties in the Reichstag are in 
general united in adopting this attitude, but they are not blind 
to the fact that a strong spirit of opposition to further social 
legislation prevails for the moment in industrial circles, which 
hold that the workman has received his due, and that em- 
ployers may reasonably claim immunity from additional burdens 
for some time to come. 


CHAPTER XVII 
NATIONAL EXPANSION 


Prince Bismarck’s idea of Germany as & ‘* satiated State —-His conceptions 
of foreign policy —The modern development of Weltpolitik in Germany— 
Weltpolitik an economic necessity for Germany—The pressure of the 
population question—Dr. P. Rohrbach on Germany’s economic limita- 
tions—The alternatives open to Germany: emigration or new trade 
outlets—The national food question—Limits of Germany’s corn-growing 
capacity—The ideal of the agricultural State threatened—The present 
and possible density of population in Germany—A Socialistic view of 
Weltpolitik—German mercantile competition is bound to become more 
severe—The possibility of emigration—Germany’s colonies of little value 
for settlement purposes—Emigration has greatly decreased during recent 
years—Pan-Germanic projects offer no solution of the population 
problem—Attention turned to South America and Asia Minor—The 
German colonies in Brazil—The Bagdad Railway and German expecta- 
tions—The policy of the open door—The extension of Germany’s sea 
power—Popularity of the ‘‘large navy’’ movement—Two motives in 
operation, the economic and the political—The Emperor the true 
director of naval policy—His conceptions of world-policy—The naval 
construction programmes—The nation united in calling for a large navy 
—The forces behind the movement—The Navy League and its propa- 
gandism—No possible finality in naval programmes—Official statement 
of the German position—England’s attitude. 


HE foreign policy pursued by Prince Bismarck after the 
French war and the rectification of the Western frontier 
which followed it was based on the maxim that Germany had 
reached the limit of territorial ambition; it had become a 
‘satiated State,’ and needed no further expansion. Nor was 
this maxim merely professed in the hope of reassuring those 
nations which were inclined to view the rise of the new Empire 
with suspicion and alarm. It was Bismarck’s fixed conviction 
that Germany had henceforth nothing to ask of other nations 
save the right to strengthen its frontiers and develop its resources 


NATIONAL EXPANSION 335 


in peace, and so long as ne held power together with responsi- 
bility, German foreign policy continued to be conducted on these 
lines. 

It is remarkable how seldom Bismarck spoke of world-policy. 
Half, and more than half, of his official life was spent in 
tying and untying knots in foreign affairs, but in those days 
foreign politics meant in the main the rejationships of half a 
dozen HKuropean States with each other, and with the other 
Continents the European Concert concerned itself but little. 
Bismarck did, indeed, early in the ’eighties, turn his glance 
across the seas when, almost against his will, he was persuaded 
to acquire colonies, yet the colonial movement which he in- 
augurated never became in his time part of a project of world- 
policy, and when it did so it departed from the principles which 
he laid down. 

To-day an altogether different conception of foreign politics 
prevails. Whereas Kurope was at the centre of the old circle of 
ideas, it is now at the periphery; the great questions with 
which the vital interests of the progressive European nations are 
bound up relate to the future of the Eastern empires and races. 
The populations of Western Europe are already outgrowing their 
geographical and economic limits, and it is recognised that their 
capacity for expansion depends upon the opening up of new and 
receptive markets in other parts of the world, in which manufac- 
tures can be exchanged for food—the products of industry for 
the produce of the soil. These considerations, amongst others, 
have widened the old formule and transformed European policy 
into world-policy, and in accepting the new order of ideas 
Germany is simply pursuing its inevitable destiny. 

The politician naturally looks exclusively to political causes 
for an explanation of the Weltpolitik which Germany is 
nowadays following ; he sees in it part of a deep-seated design 
against the existing balance of power in Europe; attributing it 
to territorial ambition pure and simple, he assumes that its 
ultimate aim is nothing less-than a redistribution of colonial 
empire. It is no part of the present purpose to follow these 
lines of speculation, or even to inquire how far they are 
applicable or judicial; disregarding merely hypothetical 
- motives of national policy, the candid student of Germany’s 
position finds himself confronted by economic facts which alone 


836 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


sufficiently explain why Germany is to-day turning its attention 
with increasing urgency to the expansion of its influence abroad. 
A glance at the following figures, showing the»growth of the 
Empire’s population since Bismarck adjusted the national fron- 
tiers in 1871, and having done that declared that Germany was 
a ‘‘ satiated State,’ is enough to explain this outward look :— 


Increase. 
Year. Population. 
Absolute Increase. Per Cent. 
1870 40,818,000 — noe 
1875 42,729,000 1,911,000 4-7 
1880 45,236,000 2,507,000 59 
1885 46,858,000 1,622,000 3°6 
1890 49,428,000 2,570,000 5°5 
1895 52,280,000 2,852,000 5°8 
1900 56,367,000 4,087,000 78 
1905 60,641,000 4,274,000 76 
(estimated) 
1907, June 12 61,697,000 1,056,000 — 


These figures clearly prove the gravity of the population 
problem by which Germany is threatened. Since Bismarck 
spoke of “‘ satiety,” and based his foreign policy on the idea 
that all Germany had henceforth to do was to keep its domestic 
affairs in order, over twenty millions have been added to the 
inhabitants of the Empire; At the present time the annual 
increase of population is over 800,000;* owing to the steady 
reduction of the death-rate, and especially the rate of infantile 
mortality, the increase will before long amount to a full million; 
and the German authority is probably under than over the 
mark who estimates that by the year 1925 the population of the 
Empire will be eighty millions, or nearly twice its number when 
Bismarck spoke of territorial finality. 

The questions which these facts raise are, of course, primarily 
physical and economic: Where will this large population hive 5 
how will it be employed; how will it be fed ? 

Discussing the population problem in a recent work, Dr. Paul 
Rohrbach says: ‘‘ Our land and climate, under the conditions 


* These lines were written before the vitality statistics for 1906 were 
published. ‘The births in that year numbered 2,002,477 (still births excluded), 
the deaths 1,112,203, showing a natural increase of 910,274. The natural 
increase in 1905 was 792,839, in 1904 it was 862,664, and in 1903 812,173. 


NATIONAL EXPANSION 337 


that will continue as far as one can foresee, allow of the pro- 
duction of corn for some forty million people. Hence it will be 
necessary to buy bread from abroad, not to the extent of one- 
sixth or one-fifth as now, but of nearly one-half. How will this 
bread be paid for? Whoever buys from abroad must give back 
in return either money or goods. But we do not possess a single 
commodity which we can produce in such quantity that it can be 
an equivalent for this foreign bread. We have neither precious 
metals in any great abundance, nor valuable plants, nor coal, 
iron, and ores in superfluity. Not only so, but we manufacture 
hardly any of the raw materials necessary for our industry in 
adequate quantities at home. We import iron, copper, wool, 
and flax; we do not possess a single fibre of cotton or silk, not 
to speak of less needful stuffs. The only way of purchasing 
food for those for whom none is produced at home is by importing 
raw materials from abroad, manufacturing them, multiplying 
their value by the process, and then paying other nations who 
need our products with this increased value which our labour has 
given to the original material.’’ * 

Again :— 

**The increase of our population is 800,000 yearly (1908). 
No ingenuity and no exertion can bring the food of these 
800,000 people out of the ground. The number of those 
who must live on foreign corn increases, and the increase 
will soon be a million a year. Whoever cannot get rid of 
this million is bound to answer the question how otherwise 
he will feed them than by the produce of our industry— 
in the manufacture of raw materials brought from abroad and 
the sale of our own products to foreign nations, or the 
produce of the capital created here and invested abroad. If 
that is so, then for Germany all questions of foreign politics must 
be viewed from the standpoint of the creation and maintenance 
of markets abroad, and especially in transoceanic countries. For 
good or ill we must all accustom ourselves in our political 
thinking to the application of the same principles as the English. 
In England the determination of foreign policy according to the 
requirements of trade, and therefore of industry, is an axiom of the 
national consciousness which no one any longer disputes. If the 

possibility of disposing of its industrial products abroad were one 


* * Deutschland unter den Weltvélkern,’’ pp. 10, 11. 
23 


3388 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


day to cease or to be visibly limited for England the immediate 
result would be, not merely the economic ruin of millions of 
industrial existences on both sides of the ocean, but the political 
collapse of Britain as a Great Power. Yet the position is not 
materially different for ourselves.’’ * 

One cannot but think that if this fundamental fact of 
Germany's enormous annual increase of population were intelli- 
gently grasped much of the unfortunate polemic to which that 
country’s industrial expansion still gives rise in certain quarters 
would be moderated. This annual increase, which is already - 
almost equal to the combined increases of the United Kingdom, 
Austria-Hungary, and Italy, with France thrown in, must exist and 
must maintain its existence by labour. Short of strangling its 
infants at birth, only two possible courses are open to Germany 
so long as its population continues to increase at the present 
healthy rate, viz., the multiplification of its industrial occupations 
or emigration on a scale never experienced before. Stating the 
facts more concretely, Germany is to-day compelled by certain 
irrefragable facts of its life as a nation—its growth of popula- 
tion, its limitations of territory, natural resources, and climate, 
its inability to feed the increasing millions of its workers—to seek 
and to find either (1) outlets for such population as cannot be 
maintained at home in a New Germany across land or sea, or 
(2) if for the present the population is to remain at home, and 
as a consequence be maintained by industry, new markets which 
shall be able to receive an enormously increased industrial output 
in exchange for food. The position of Germany is that of a 
prolific nation which is growing beyond the physical conditions 
of its surroundings. 

How serious the population question appears to Germans who 
have studied it—and in one phase or another the question 
comes up in most of the current economic literature—may be 
judged from the following passage in Dr. Rohrbach’s book, 
already mentioned :— 

‘‘That feeling of 1870-1871 which finds expression in the 
poems of Geibel and his consorts, in verses like— 


‘Glorious shall ever stand 
Our German fatherland,’ 


* « Deutschland unter den Weltvélkern,” pp. 11, 12 


NATIONAL EXPANSION 339 


which created the German self-consciousness after the conquest 
of France as a sort of lyrical-romantic pendant to the Bismarckian 
dictum about ‘satiety,’ and which even to-day passes in the elect 
‘patriotic’ circles as the officially accredited expression of 
German national sentiment—this feeling must be rooted out and 
must give place to the sober resolution, the clear and positive 
determination, to acquire national power—a resolution and 
determination proceeding from the knowledge that we are by 
no means surrounded by a halo of glory, but stand in the midst 
of a profoundly dangerous crisis, a crisis which will try all our 
powers, and will determine our part in the history of the world 
for centuries, if not for ever.’’* 

There is no reason to believe that the corn-growing capacity of 
the country is as yet exhausted, yet it is a fact which points its 
own moral that in spite of the careful protection of the agri- 
cultural industry the production of food corn, while it increases 
absolutely, has ceased to keep pace with the growth of popu- 
lation. Nor is there the least likelihood that any measures 
which legislation and individual enterprise may together adopt 
will to any appreciable degree diminish the relative deficiency 
which has already set in. Several incontrovertible facts speak 
against any such expectation. Short ofa sliding scale of duties, 
devised so as to maintain the price of corn under all circum- 
stances at a given height above the level of the world-market, 
the home corn-grower, driven more and more by dearer labour 
and higher rents to a more intensive cultivation of the soil, 
cannot hope to compete with countries which have the 
advantage of low costs of production, whether caused by cheap 
labour, as in Russia, or low rents, as in Argentina. Meantime, 
he finds it increasingly difficult to obtain labour in consequence 
of the competition of industry and the towns—the former 
offering higher wages than agriculture can possibly pay, and the 
latter amenities of life which have an irresistible attraction for 
the rural labourer who has served his two years in garrison. 
Further, owing to these facts, an increasing number of agricul- 
turists are recognising that their greatest hope lies in a change 
from arable farming to grazing, and every tendency seems to 
point in the same direction, not least the movement for the 
multiplication of small owners. The best that can be hoped, 

* Dr. P. Rohrbach, ‘‘ Deutschland unter den Weltvolkern,” pp. 7, 8. 


340 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


therefore, is that for a time corn-growing will hold its own, 
yet it is also inevitable that the greater the amount of food 
that has to be imported the heavier will become the charge on 
the national income caused by the corn duties, until the burden 
reaches the straining-point. Should these duties be withdrawn, 
however, corn-growing will necessarily give way still more to ~ 
other forms of agriculture and to industry. 

If, however, the yearly increase of population cannot be “espt 
on the land the only outlets for its labour are trade and industry ;. 
in other words, the ideal of the agricultural State must be 
sacrificed. On this supposition Germany will, for a long time 
to come, have room not only for its existing population but 
for the yearly increase of a million inhabitants which appears 
imminent. At the present time the population of the Empire 
only averages 300 persons to the square mile (comparing with 
about 200 in 1875), while that of the two most industrial 
countries of Europe, England and Belgium, exceeds 600, Even 
in Germany there are States which, without showing any signs 
of congestion, maintain a far larger ratio of population than 
the Empire as a whole. Saxony has 780 inhabitants to the 
square mile, and even in Prussia, whose ratio is only 278, the 
province of Rhineland has a density of 620 inhabitants to the 
square mile, and the province of Westphalia one of 465. That 
Germany, even as an industrial State, could hope to support a 
population as dense as that of the two industrial provinces of the 
North-West, which together have at the present time 550 persons 
per square mile, is hardly to be expected. For that the natural 
resources of a large part of the country are too poor, a fact 
which explains why, for example, whole provinces in the East of 
Prussia have not half the relatively low density of the Empire as 
a whole. Between a present national ratio of 300 persons per 
square mile and the ratio of the West of Prussia there is, however, 
a difference which represents a population of some forty millions, 
and within that limit there is clearly a very considerable capacity 
for expansion, This expansion, will, however, be on industrial 
and not. on agricultural lines. It has, indeed, been estimated 
that there are-tenmillion acres of moorland and other waste 
land which could be brought under cultivation and which would 
provide holdings of 25 acres for 400,000 families, but the aggre- 
gate population so represented is only equal to two years’ increase. 


NATIONAL EXPANSION 341 


But the increase of industry implies the increase of markets, 
for to the extent that food must be bought abroad commodities 
must be sold there. It is interesting to note the impression 
made by this aspect of the problem upon the mind of a clear- 
thinking Socialist writer, Herr Richard Calwer, who cannot be 
accused of Chauvinism. Herr Calwer writes in the “ Sozial- 
istische Monatshefte ’’ :— 

‘‘Truly Germany occupies no pleasant position in the world- 
market. On the one side there is England, blessed with its 
“colonial empire, which more and more approaches towards the 
goal of an Imperial Customs Union, and on the other side there 
is the North American Union, which not only regards South 
America as its domain, but because of natural, technical, and 
economic reasons, is in many respects superior and dangerous 
tous. For the present Japan and Russia may be left out of our 
calculations. Between the two stands Germany, which is main- 
taining an extremely difficult struggle, not merely for tha 
maintenance and expansion of its markets, but for the protection 
and cheapening of its supplies of raw materials. We have a 
yearly increase of population amounting to about 900,000. Our 
agriculture is not able to feed this increase, and it must for 
the most part be thrown on the industrial labour market. The 
industrial production of Germany, therefore, will increase, and 
must increase more rapidly than in any other industrial country 
which competes with us. But for our increasing production 
we need to find a sale, and one on as favourable and healthy 
conditions as possible, and measures must also be taken to secure 
adequate supplies of raw material.” 

Unpleasant though the prospect must be for older industrial 
nations, which see themselves threatened from several sides 
simultaneously, German competition in the world markets will 
inevitably become more severe. The individual industrialist 
pushes forward his trade outposts for personal advantage, but to 
the nation collectively extended markets are a condition of life. 

There remains the alternative of emigration, and it is one 
to which Germany is fully alive: Here; however, Germany is 
handicapped by the fact that, owing to its late appearance in the 
field as a colonial Power, few territories under its protection are 
suited to the settlement of Europeans. Germany, indeed, does 
not possess colonies in the true sense. Its colonial empire is 


342 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


composed of protectorates and dependencies, bureaucratically 
governed from Berlin, situated for the most part in tropical 
countries, which are suited only for plantation enterprises 
worked by native labour. The one dependency which seems to 
offer possibilities of genuine colonisation is South-West Africa, 
large portions of which, in Damaraland and Namaland, are not 
only very fertile but enjoy a temperate climate and seem likely, 
when abnormal conditions have ceased to exist, to be the home 
of a considerable agricultural colony. Whether South-West 
Africa is able to receive population on the same scale as the 
Cape Colony in the South, as the German Colonial Secretary 
maintains it is, depends altogether upon the character and 
extent of its undeveloped mineral wealth, and this for the present 
exists only in report. 

In general, however, Germany’s foreign possessions are 
unsuited to colonisation on a large scale, and the consequence 
is that its emigration movement represents an absolute loss 
to the Empire. During the past thirty years (1876 to 1906) 
no fewer than two and a quarter million Germans have left 
the mother country, and with exceptions so few as to be rela- 
tively insignificant have made their homes under foreign flags, 
and for the most part in the United States. The destinations 
of the 1,085,124 emigrants who left Germany between 1887 and 
1906 were as follows :— 


United States ... oe seh saa «. 1,007,547 
Brazil ... oes “Ae oe 24,072 


Other American States aus Ais sas 36,184 
Australia... fs abs ove ous eee 5,390 
Africa ... oie ave shee “P ess 9,698 
Asia ate bee one nae pas ay 2,233 


The loss to the Empire of this emigrant population is naturally 
a sore point with all patriotic Germans, and is an argument for 
colonisation with which outsiders can cordially sympathise. At. 
the present time, it is true, the emigration figure is very low, 
amounting to an average of 30,000 during the past six years, 
but twenty years ago it exceeded 100,000 annually, a little 
earlier it exceeded 200,000, and it would be unsafe to predict 
that the tide will not again turn. i 

It is evident that no mere extension of its European boundaries 
would afford Germany permanent relief, Whatever reality there 


NATIONAL EXPANSION 343 


may be in the ideals and endeavours of the Pan-Germanic move- 
ment, Pan-Germanism offers no solution of this population 
problem. It is conceivable that the German-speaking portions 
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire may eventually throw in their 
lot with the more progressive Empire in the North; it is barely 
conceivable that at some remote period German-speaking terri- 
tories outside the old ‘‘ Holy Roman Empire of the German 
Nation ’’ may pass under the Imperial eagle, but territorial 
extensions of this kind would in no way abate, and might even 
increase, the economic pressure of the population question.* 

The idea which is nowadays gaining ground is the establish- 
ment in undeveloped and spacious countries of temperate climate 
of German settlements, on the model of those in South Brazil, 
which shall act as pioneers of German influence, enterprise, and 
trade. 

‘‘ We must resign ourselves in all clearness and calm to the 
fact that there is no possibility of acquiring colonies suitable for 
emigration,’ writes Dr. P. Rohrbach. ‘‘ But if we cannot have 
such colonies it by no means follows that we cannot obtain the 
advantages, if only to a limited extent, which make these colonies 
desirable. It is a mistake to regard the mere possession of 
extensive transoceanic territories, even when they are able to 
absorb a part of the national surplus of population, as necessarily 
a direct increase of power. Australia, Canada, and South Africa 
do not increase the power of the British Empire because they 
are British possessions, nor yet because a few million British 
emigrants with their descendants live in them, but because by 
the trade with them the wealth and with it the defensive strength 
of the mother country are increased. Colonies which do not 
produce that result have but little value; and countries which 
possess this importance for a nation, even though they are not its 
colonies, are in this decisive point a substitute for colonial pos- 
sessions in the ordinary sense.’’t 

For the present it might seem that Germany’s eyes are 
turned to three directions—to Brazil, Argentina, and Asia 
Minor. ‘It is recognised that the way to colonial empire” in 

* It is estimated that the German-speaking people of the world number 
86,000,000. Of these some 72 per cent. live in the Empire; the vast majority 
of the remainder are distributed in Austria, the United States, and Switzerland, 


but only a fraction of them are citizens of the Empire. 
+‘ Deutschland unter den Weltvélkern,’’ pp. 159, 160. 


344 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


South America is blocked by the Munroe Doctrine amongst 
other practical difficulties, but that doctrine does not apply 
to settlements, and it has not prevented the establishment in 
the southern parts of Brazil of several large German colonies 
which both multiply and prosper. According to a recent 
estimate the Germans now resident in Brazil number some 
400,000, the great majority being settled in the southern 
States of Rio Grande do Sul, Parana, and Santa Catharina, 
while a small number are found in San Paulo and Espirito 
Santo, in the north. This population is for the most part the 
result of natural increase, for of late years emigration thither 
has greatly declined. Twenty years ago the yearly average was 
some 2,500; of late years it has fallen below a third of that 
number owing to the great decrease in the general stream of 
emigration. It is held that Germanism in Brazil might still be 
indefinitely strengthened by well-directed emigration, and that 
settlements might, with equal prospects of success, be established 
in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. 

In Near Asia, too, German colonisation is by no means of 
recent origin. There are in Transcaucasia agricultural settle- 
ments established by Wurtemberg farmers, whose descendants, 
in the third generation, live in their own villages, and still speak 
their native language. In Palestine there are the German Templar 
colonies on the coast, which have prospered so well as to excite 
the resentment of the natives. The building of the Bagdad 
Railway has turned German attention to the fertile regions of 
Anatolia and Mesopotamia, though rather with the idea of com- 
merce than of: possession. How far Turkey might be willing to 
encourage German settlement there on a systematic basis is a 
problematic question which cannot be decided by the present 
amicable relationships between that Power and Berlin. The fact 
that German enclaves would mean the presence of an alien 
religion and an alien culture in the heart of the Ottoman 
Empire is an objection which will hardly give way before the 
exchange of diplomatic courtesies. Hither these colonies would 
bring their own institutions and cultivate their own customs and 
laws, each constituting itself a State within a State, or they 
would live under and be subject to Turkish laws, which would be 
intolerable. Enthusiastic advocates of colonisation call for the 
establishment, on terms to be arranged, of a German pro- 


NATIONAL EXPANSION 345 


tectorate over a prescribed territory ; but while neither country is 
ready for such a measure the opinion is widely held in Germany 
that with the eventual disintegration of the Sultan’s dominions 
Asia Minor will naturally fall to the Northern Empire. Cer- 
tainly it would be wise if England accustomed itself to the idea 
that Germany may look for relief to that quarter. 


These are speculations of the future, however, and they do not; 


alleviate the need of the moment. That.need is new trade 
openiags. No disguise is made of the fact that German industry 
builds great expectations.upon the Bagdad Railway, which it 
regards as the key to new markets in which Germany will have a 
preponderant position. ‘‘It is possible,’ writes Dr. Rohrbach, 
who has for years directed attention to the commercial 
possibilities of this part of the Ottoman Empire, ‘“‘ that there 
is a great future for Germany in Turkish Asia. But Germany’s 
political attitude to Turkey is unlike that of all other European 
Powers in that, in complete sincerity, we ask not a single foot of 
Turkish territory either in Europe, Asia, or Africa, but have only 
the wish and the interest to find in Turkey—whether its domina- 
tion be in future restricted to the Asiatic provinces or not— 
a market and a source of raw materials for our industry, and in 
this respect we advance no other claim regarding other nations 
than that of an unconditional open door.’”’* The attitude of the 
commercial world was recently stated as follows by the Cologne 
Gazette: ‘‘The Bagdad Railway means for the Turkish Empire 
the opening up of large territories, for Germany it is simply 
an enterprise by means of which it may be possible to obtain for 
German capital and trade a new field of activity. German 
finance did its best to induce English and French capitalists to 
co-operate in the building of the line, and it is not to blame if 
they have refused to come in. It is ridiculous that German 
policy should be reproached with a desire to obtain a footing in 
Asia Minor to the injury of other foreign interests. We are 
doing in Turkey just what we are doing in other parts of the 
world—we are seeking new markets for our exports and new 
spheres of investment for our capital.” 

Still more recently an official «mprimatur was placed upon 
this statement of German views in Asia Minor. Speaking in 
the Reichstag on March 24, 1908, Secretary of State von Schon 

* ‘Deutschland unter den Weltvélkern,”’ pp. 52, 53, 


346 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


said: ‘‘ He trusted and believed that, in accordance with the 
predominant part which Germans had taken in initiating and 
financing the scheme, German influence would remain predomi- 
nant in the enterprise. But all the assertions which had been 
advanced with regard to German political schemes in connection 
with the railway, or with reference to an alleged plan of German 
colonisation in the districts through which it passed, were pure 
inventions.’ * 

An interesting light is thrown upon the singular faculty of the 
German for combining ‘“‘ idealism” with ‘‘realism’’ by Dr. P. 
Rohrbach’s plea that his countrymen will put away all thoughts 
of acquiring territory in Asia Minor and seek to establish 
influence there by a well-directed conjunction of philanthropy 
and business. Remembering the pioneer work which has been 
done by the Italians in the Levant with schools and by the 
French in other parts of the Turkish Empire with hospitals, he 
advises Germans to employ the same means of winning the con- 
fidence—and obtaining the orders—of the people of Mesopotamia 
and Babylonia. 

‘‘From these two things, the school—that is, the making 
accessible to the people of the German language, with a certain 
acquaintance with German culture—and more especially medical 
institutions, the most fruitful efforts in the strengthening of 
the economic relationships between giver and receiver will be 
obtained. Every penny which is expended in this way in Turkey 
from to-day forward will in due time be converted into a certain 
import value. That is. the policy which we should follow in the 
territory opened up by the Bagdad Railway.” t 

One aspect of the opening up of Anatolia would hardly appear 
to have received the attention it deserves, viz., the probable 
results for the German corn-growing industry. If, as one 
authority has estimated, the new railway will eventually 
enable corn in good years to be placed on the German 


* Such an avowal of legitimate, ends is more “conciliatory than the plea put 
forward by a prominent member of the Reichstag that Germany's only interest 
in the Bagdad Railway is archeological. Baron von Hertling stated on 
April 30, 1907: ‘‘ It is true that a German corporation obtained the concession 
for this railway from the Ottoman Government in 1904, and we have every 
inducement to use German capital in opening up that old centre of civilisation 
for the purposes of science and exploration, but that political considerations are 
involved would never occur to me.’ 

+ ‘Deutschland unter den Weltvélkern,”’ p. 177. 


NATIONAL EXPANSION 347 


frontier at the price of £4 5s. per ton, the new railway will 
be likely to accentuate the existing feud between industry and 
agriculture, 

In trade efforts of this kind, whether in Asia Minor or in 
other parts of the world, there is no necessary reason for con- 
flict or misunderstanding between Germany and other countries ; 
the only rivalry is in brains, energy, and resource. Appre- 
hensions on that score will also be diminished the more firmly 
and loyally Germany adheres to the policy of the ‘‘ open door ”’ 
which Great Britain has followed in every part of the world, to 
the immeasurable advantage of international trade and the equal 
enrichment of other nations with itself. That this policy stili 
holds the field in Berlin may safely be concluded from the public 
declaration deliberately addressed through the delegation of 
British journalists to the British Government and people by Dr. 
von Muhlberg, Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, on May 29, 
1907. ‘‘ Everywhere in Asia and in Africa,’’ he said, ‘‘Germany 
has only one aim—the open door. I believe that it is just on 
this point of policy that we could meet and count on your 
support. Everywhere in the world where Great Britain has 
brought any country under her influence she has never suppressed 
the trade development of other lands, as many nations have done 
to their own detriment. You have always devoted your energies 
and labours to the opening up of the country’s sources of pro- 
duction, and bringing it nearer to civilisation and progress. You 
have never excluded other States from territories under British 
influence, but allowed them to go in along with you. This policy 
of yours is now celebrating one of its greatest triumphs in Egypt. 
The policy of my Imperial master shares this conception of the 
tasks and aims to which the civilised State must aspire. Here, 
I believe, is the connecting bridge which we can cross together 
and join hands upon without any prejudice to the friendships 
and alliances uniting your Empire to other nations.” Such an 
attitude, while it cannot diminish the mercantile rivalry between 
nations, may yet do much to mitigate the conditions under which 
that rivalry is carried on. 

There remains to be considered one other outcome of Welt- 
politik as understood in Germany in the present day, and for 
England it has special interest. If new markets are necessary 
to Germany’s growing population it is no less inevitable that its 


848 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


sea power will be increased, for the protection of its maritime 
trade, and not least, as the dependence upon foreign corn 
increases, its food supply. For the present this is the phase 
of Weltpolitik which holds the field. Indeed, it is hardly too 
much to say that the policy of naval extension has of late drawn 
German parties together as never since the ardent but short- 
lived military septennate incident of twenty years ago, and that, 
more than any other movement, it enlists the enthusiastic and 
undivided attachment of the nation. 

Two motives influence different sections of the nation. The 
one.is.the legitimate desire to see the German navy brought to 
such a standard of numbers and strength that thé national 
interests on the sea and in distant lands may at all times count 
upon prompt and efficient defence. The other motive, which is 
supplementary to this, and by no means antagonistic to it, is the 
ambition for a larger ‘‘place in the sun.”’ The first of these 
motives may be illustrated by’ some words recently written by 
Professor F. Paulsen, one of the warmest advocates in Germany 
of a good understanding between that country and Great Britain. 
‘‘The German Empire,” he says, “‘ has participated in the 
policy of expansion out of Kurope—at first modestly, of late 
with growing decision. ‘The enormous increase of its industrial 
production and its trade compelled it to take measures for the 
extension and the security of its over-sea interests. In the 
course of a single generation Germany, as an industrial and 
mercantile State, has worked its way into the second position in 
Europe; to-day England alone is ahead of it, yet by no great 
distance, and the distance decreases every year. The necessity 
of protecting this position by a strong naval force has during 
recent decades become a dominant factor in the political thought 
of the nation.”’ * 

The more political aspect of the question finds frequent recog- 
nition in the works of Dr. P. Rohrbach. ‘‘ The question for us,” 
says this writer, ‘‘is whether we shall devote all our strength in — 
the determination to gain—or more truly to regain—for our- 
selves a place by the side of those nations now ahead of us; 
whether we shall maintain our position amongst the nations by 
which in the twentieth century and later world-history will be 


* Internationale Wochenschrift fiir Wissenschaft, Kunst, und Technik 
(October 26, 1907), p. 18. 


NATIONAL EXPANSION 349 


made, or shall modestly agree to take a second place in the 
concert of world-policy.”’ * ti 
For practical purposes it is the Emperor who directs naval 


policy, + and who will direct itso long as he continues to rule as™~ 


well as to reign, and he has left no doubt as to the con- 
siderations which underlie that policy. He, too, is naturally 
concerned that Germany’s maritime interests, its foreign trade, 
its colonial empire, its citizens in foreign countries, and the 
security of the home coasts shall be able to rely upon efficient 
defence. 

‘The German Empire has become a world-empire,” he said 
on January 18, 1896, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 
foundation of the Empire; ‘‘ thousands of our German country- 
men live in all parts of the globe. German goods, German 
knowledge, German enterprise go across the ocean' The 
values which Germany carries upon the sea figure at thousands 
of millions [of marks]. It is your solemn duty to bind this 
greater German Empire fast to the Empire at home.” ‘‘ Im- 
perial power,” he said further on December 138, 1897, ‘‘ denotes 
sea power, and Imperial power and sea power are complementary ; 
the one cannot exist without the other.” 

Yet, while basing his claim for a strong navy on the needs 
of Germany’s foreign trade and colonial empire, the Emperor 
recognises that greater prestige as a world-Power can only be 
obtained by a policy of naval expansion. ‘‘ The wave-beat 
knocks powerfully at our national gates,’’ he said on July 8, 
1900, ‘‘ and calls us as a great nation to maintain our place in 
the world—in other words, to follow world-policy. The ocean is 
indispensable for Germany’s greatness, but the ocean also 
reminds us that neither on it nor across it in the distance can 
any great decision be again consummated without Germany and 
the German Emperor. It is not my opinion that our German 
people conquered and bled thirty years ago under the leadership 
of their princes in order to be pushed on one side when great 
and momentous foreign decisions are come to. Were that so 


* ¢¢ Deutschland unter den Weltvélkern,”’ p. 149. 

+ The right belongs to him under article 53 of the Imperial Constitution : 
«‘The navy of the Empire is a united one under the supreme command of the 
Emperor. The Emperor is charged with its organisation and arrangement, and 
he shall appoint the oflicers and officials of the navy and in his name these and 
the seamen shall be sworn in.” 


350 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


there would once for all be an end of the world-power of 
the German nation, and I am not going to allow that to 
happen. To use the fittest, and if necessary the most drastic, 
means to prevent this is not only my duty but my noblest 
privilege.” 

It is not necessary to weigh too critically winged words like 
‘‘ The trident must pass into our hands ”’ or ‘‘ Our future lies on 
the water,’ for their author has never attempted to conceal his 
ambition to see Germany as strong on water as on land. 
‘‘ Notwithstanding the great war,” the Emperor said at Bremen 
in March, 1905, “the period during which I grew to man’s 
estate was neither great nor glorious for the seafaring portion 
of our nation. Here, too, I have drawn the logical conclusions 
of that which my forefathers have accomplished. At home the 
army had been developed as far as was necessary. The time for 
naval armament had come. To-day ... the fleet is afloat, 
and is still being built. very German warship launched is 
one guarantee more for peace on earth, yet it also means that 
our adversaries will be so much less inclined to pick a quarrel 
with us, while it will render us by an equal amount more 
valuable as allies.” 

So far as the Emperor is concerned the policy of naval extension 
is no new thing, and he can fairly claim that he is merely 
reaping to-day the fruits of years of vain endeavour. It was not 
without significance that on coming to the throne he addressed 
a special message to the navy, reminding it that ‘‘ since my 
earliest youth I have been connected with it by a cordial and 
vivid sympathy.’’ He had only been on the throne several 
months when (September, 1888) he placed the increase of the 
navy in the forefront of national questions. ‘‘I hope,” he said, 
in reviewing the fleet at Wilhelmshaven, ‘‘ that the navy will 
powerfully grow and contribute to the defence and strength of 
the fatherland and the security of its coasts.”” The desire to 
see the navy strengthened dated much further back, however, for 
at Bremen in March, 1905, he told how ‘“‘as a young man as I 
stood before the model of Bromme’s ship,* it was with feelings of 
resentment that I realised the disgrace which had fallen on our 
fleet and the flag we flew in those days.’’ Even more powerful 


* In 1853, by resolution of the old Imperial Diet at Frankfort, the federal 
fleet, including the flagship of Admiral Bromme, was sold by auction. 


NATIONAL EXPANSION 351 


than those early impressions was that ‘‘ drop of sailor-blood 
from my mother’s side’’ which, as the Emperor has reminded 
us, flows in his veins, and ‘‘ gave me the clue as to how and in 
what manner I was to frame my conception of the duties which 
henceforth lay before the German Empire’’ (March, 1905). For 
a long time he piped to hearers who did not dance, and eight 
years passed before the Reichstag granted the reformed Admi- 
ralty a vote which enabled it to undertake the reorganisation 
of the navy in earnest, so ‘‘setting its hand to a work which 
will receive the grateful appreciation of coming generations.’’ * 

The construction programme of 1900 marked the definite 
triumph of the large navy party. That programme was in- 
tended to bring the navy by the year 1920 to a strength of 
38 line ships and 14 large cruisers, based on a life of twenty- 
five years. A further addition was made in 1906, however, and 
again in the present year, owing to the reduction in the age of iron- 
clads from twenty-five to twenty years, and according to present 
intentions 17 line vessels, six large cruisers, and 19 small cruisers 
will be laid down between now and 1917. Nevertheless, even 
with these additions, the view generally held in Germany is 
that the present programme is definite as to the immediate 
future only, and that even before 1912 supplementary proposals 
will be made. The assumption that German shipbuilding 
yards are not able to meet larger demands is, of course, 
groundless. With a guarantee of regular commissions, the 
yards on the Elbe and Weser and the Baltic coast would 
speedily develop an output capacity equal to any conceivable 
requirements. In the present year (1908) there are building in 
Germany 7 battleships and 3 large armoured cruisers, 6 small 
cruisers, and 3 gunboats, with 24 torpedo-boats, and a large 
number of submarines. 

What this naval extension policy means may be judged by 
the fact that while twenty years ago the naval estimates 
amounted to three and a half million pounds and ten years 
ago to less than five millions, the programme for the next ten 
years is based on an average annual expenditure of nearly 
twenty-one millions, more than half of this expenditure being 
_ ear-marked for new ships and armaments. Twenty years ago 
the navy was manned by fifteen thousand officers and seamen, 

* Emperor’s Speech from the Throne on May 6, 1896. 


352 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


ten years ago the number was twenty-three thousand, to-day it 
exceeds fifty thousand. 

At the present time all parties are favourable to the rapid 
increase of the navy, and it is significant that even the Radicals, 
the traditional friends of economy, who would have abandoned 
the colonies several years ago because of their cost, have of late 
urged the Government to go beyond its own programme. 

It is of immense importance that the strength of this movement 
should be understood. Making allowance for a few hot-headed 
Chauvinists, there is no brag, no truculence, no menace about 
the movement; its greatest significance lies in the fact that 
behind it are the deliberate will and calm resolution of a united 
nation. The whole influence of the universities is on the side of 
this movement and of the Imperialism of which it is at once the 
effect and the cause.* Behind the large navy party are also 
powerful industrial interests, with a vigorous and well-directed 
advocacy in the Press and not a few spokesmen in the Reichstag. 
The Rhenish- Westphalian iron and steel industrialists call for a 
navy whose cost shall at least be equal to 5 per cent. of the sea- 
going trade, an insurance premium equal at present to about twenty 
two and a half millions a year. Even the Socialists as a party 
are by no means hostile to the building up of a strong naval 
force, in spite of the hypercritical attitude of some of their 
parliamentary leaders, an attitude best explained by the maxim 
that it is the duty of an Opposition to oppose. Before the navy 
question entered its present stage of popularity the Socialist 
Herr R. Calwer wrote :— 

‘*To-day, when Germany is the equal, economically, of 
England and the United States, and is compelled to take up an 
attitude towards all questions of world-politics in the interest of 
its industry, the naval policy of modern industrial States may 
indeed be severely condemned, but it cannot be expected of one’s 
own country that it shall take up an exceptional position which 
might be fatal. As matters are to-day the prestige of a State — 


* The Berlin conference of professors and representatives of learning and 
science to which the new Colonial Secretary unfolded his colonial programme 
in January, 1907, adopted the formal resolution that ‘‘ a great civilised nation 
like the German nation cannot permanently restrict itself to internal polities, 
but must take part with the other great nations in colonial and world-politics,” 
and formed a standing committee to make propagandism for the cause, 
‘¢ without direct participation in party warfare.”’ 


NATIONAL EXPANSION 353 


abroad depends on its readiness for war both on sea and 
land.’’* 

A striking proof of the hold which the naval extension policy 
has obtained upon the national imagination may be seen in the 
remarkable growth of the Navy League and the popularity of its 
propagandism.~ It is only ten years since the Navy League was 
established, yet it has to-day a membership, individual and 
corporate, of over a million, and its recent growth has been at 
the rate of a hundred thousand annually. Nor is its influence 
limited to the maritime States, for inland Saxony contributes a 
quarter of the members. It has branches in every town and in 
almost every village; members of the reigning houses are its 
most energetic workers; its maps and charts, illustrating and 
comparing the navies of England and Germany, are found in tens 
of thousands of schoolrooms, libraries, and offices, and it keeps 
the country literally deluged with pamphlets and leaflets in 
advocacy of the large fleet policy. The Government takes care 
to disown the ambitious shipbuilding programmes which the 
League puts forward from time to time, yet it would be very 
unwilling to deny that the League’s effective agitation affords 
substantial help to the policy of naval extension, and moreover 
there is an unmistakable tendency for the League’s programmes 
to translate themselves into fact. 

The League is distinctly Chauvinistic in spirit, though it 
also fosters much genuine and healthy patriotism. The tone 
which prevails in its ruling circles may be judged from a passage 
taken from a speech made by Major-General Keim (since 
deposed from his seat owing to his anti-Roman Catholic 
agitation in the last elections) at the annual meeting held in 
Cologne in May, 1907 :— 

“The German Navy League is twenty times as large as all 
other Navy Leagues in the world together. Even the English 
Navy League has written to us asking an explanation of how 
we have succeeded in growing so quickly. We have sent the 
English Navy League our rules, and with our usual courtesy 
have given it advice and directions. But our rules have not 
made this success; rather has the spirit that lives in the League. 
For that reason no Navy League in the world can imitate us. 
The spirit upon which we are founded is that of German 

* Sozialistische Monatshefie, November, 1908. 


354 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


idealism. Our navy recognises only one flag, ‘black, white and 
red,’ and this symbol of German unity, the war flag, we shall 
maintain, for in it is incorporated the idealism of the German 
nation. It is the duty of the Navy League to spread amongst 
the nations the conviction that we urgently need a strong fleet. 
Our entire political relations with foreign countries depend upon 
the question of power. The Imperial Chancellor may write the 
prettiest notes, but the world always asks what lies behind. 
And because the Powers know that behind Germany there 
stands a victorious army, they say, ‘ We had better take care.’ 

‘But that does not apply, alas! to our navy, and so we must 
work unceasingly for the rapid increase of our fleet. Germany 
builds ships more slowly than any other Power. If, according 
to the senseless proposal made to the Hague Conference, the 
building of new ships were to be suspended, England would 
have 100 vessels of war, France 49, the United States 40, 
Germany 82, and Japan 28, and remember also that England 
and Japan build a far larger type of vessel than we. Japan 
nowadays builds vessels of 22,000 tons in two years, while 
Germany needs four years to build armoured vessels of 13,000 
tons,* and, as the English Admiralty has lately said, the State 
which builds most quickly has the cheapest and the most 
modern vessels at command. For the enormous numerical 
superiority of almost all States which concern us we have no 
sufficient equivalent in technical matters. In face of these 
brutal figures even the best spirit and the most willing sacrifice 
are of no avail. There is no great political art in dictating laws 
and concluding alliances everywhere when one has such a navy 
as the English. But for that reason the German nation should 
not be told that it has no reason to be nervous. If one is in 
questionable company, where a couple of rascals are armed with 
cudgels and one has only a walking-stick oneself, the situation is 
by no means pleasant.”’ 

It may be true for the present that, as a responsible German 
journal recently stated, ‘‘ No single person in Germany cherishes 
the hope that the German navy will one day be equal to that of 
England, much less be superior to it.” Yet it is fair to conclude 
that the hope is only disowned because the possibility of its 
realisation seems so remote, and even those who most readily 

* A statement which must have surprised the German shipbuilding yards. 


NATIONAL EXPANSION : 355 


concede Germany’s right to frame its naval policy according 
to its liking, and who are entirely convinced that that policy 
conceals no sinister designs against other Powers, will decline to 
believe that there can be any finality about the latest or any 
future naval programme. Whatever its present intentions may 
be, having decided that it will have a strong fleet, Germany will 
find it impossible to impose any limits to the size of that fleet 
other than those which financial considerations may dictate. 
The very logic of facts—those facts which are held to justify the 
naval construction schemes now regarded as sufficient—will com- 
pel it to go forward, and so armaments which are honestly spoken 
of as superfluous to-day will be found necessary to-morrow. 

No one can doubt this who has watched the remarkable 
change which has come over German public opinion on the navy 
question during the past few years. To give one illustration only: 
it was only in 1905 that the leading organ of the commercial, 
anti-military Radical party of Prussia, the Vossische Zeitung, 
said in disparagement of a navy scheme of that day, ‘‘The 
more eager and excited the demands which, with the fullest 
publicity, are advanced for a considerable increase in the German 
navyy—an agitation which does not scruple to hint at the 
possibility of war with England—the stronger will be the 
inducements for other States, and, in particular, for Great 
Britain, to strengthen their own naval forces. The boundless 
extravagances in which the spokesmen of the Navy League 
indulge may easily produce a result which was not contemplated. 
The more ‘shouting’ there is in Germany the more ships will 
England build.” Yet two years later the same journal wrote, 
when the proposal of a still larger scheme led to controversy 
abroad, ‘“‘ Why is Germany put in the foreground in discussions 
of the armament question? The Government's plans have been 
publicly explained, and have been sanctioned by the Reichstag. 
England will surely not express or indicate a wish in Berlin that 
the new German Navy Bill shall not be carried into effect? If 
the English believe that in spite of their friendly relations 
with France and Japan, and in spite of their understanding with 
Russia, they must lay down two ships of the same type for each 
one that Germany lays down, we ought not to be made respon- 
sible for the increase of the English Naval Estimates.” 

It must be clear to all who have watched the gradual erystalli- 


356 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


sation of the large navy idea in Germany, and who are able to 
appreciate the apprehensions to which the twofold problem of 
population and foreign trade gives rise, that little chance exists 
of the acceptance of the status quo ante policy. Many of 
Germany’s critics will say that in providing for more or less remote 
contingencies the German nation is needlessly anxious. But 
foresight is the essence of statesmanship, and Germany cannot be 
blamed because it refuses to accept the idea that national policies 
can be constructed from day to day, according to the chances and 
accidents of the moment. It is well to remember that the war 
of 1871 was in reality won sixty years before, when Prussia 
introduced the system of universal military service; that the 
foundation of Germany’s modern industrial triumphs was laid in 
the eighteenth century, when Prussia and Saxony enacted com- 
pulsory education ; that the singularly successful administration 
of German towns which is being to-day so diligently studied, and 
which well repays all the study given to it, is the fruit of laws 
and decrees, elastic and infinitely adaptable to changing condi- 
tions, going back a full century, before some of the more 
difficult problems which nowadays beset town government could 
have been anticipated. Granted the necessity of a given policy, 
questions of time and method are of supreme importance. 

The difficulty consists in reconciling divergent standpoints. 
The Emperor has said in perfect good faith that “‘ with every new 
German battleship another pledge for peace on earth is given.” 
Probably most English people are quite prepared to believe that 
the strong German navy of the future will prove as pacific as the 
strong army has proved for the last thirty-seven years, yet they 
naturally think that Germany might have been content to keep 
the peace of Europe with its big battalions as before, leaving 
England to offer its ironclads as hostages in the same great 
cause. On the other hand, Germany advances ‘‘the right to 
maintain the navy and the army which it requires for the 
maintenance of its interests.” * Its position was officially 
restated by Prince Bulow in the Reichstag on March 24, 1908, 
in the following words :—‘‘ We do not dispute England’s right to 
draw up its naval programme in accordance with the standard 
which its responsible statesmen consider necessary for the 
maintenance of British world- (maritime?) supremacy, and 

* Speech of the Emperor at Hamburg, September 7, 1904. 


NATIONAL EXPANSION 307 


similarly it cannot be taken amiss that we should build those 
ships which we require, nor can we be blamed for desiring that 
our programme of naval construction should not be represented 
as a challenge to England.”” The same contention was recently 
advanced in less diplomatic terms by the Cologne Gazette, 
which wrote, ‘‘ If Germany were to suggest to Great Britain a 
restriction of the British programme of warship construction, it 
would provoke a storm of indignation in England. In the same 
way, it is not clear by what right Great Britain can exercise any 
infltience over Germany’s naval programme.”’ 

That is the position which all Germany takes on this question, 
and no good purpose can be served by either ignoring it or 
converting it into a grievance. For England, the country 
principally affected, the only safe and the only possible attitude 
lies in the calm, dispassionate, and ungrudging recognition of 
Germany’s right to follow the policy which it thinks wise and 
necessary. Such an attitude leaves both countries with a free 
hand; for England especially it has the inestimable advantage 
that it enables its statesmen to shape their schemes of national 
defence unembarrassed by external conditions and obligations, 
and guided solely by a consideration of the Empire’s interests 
and needs. Such an attitude will add enormously to the 
responsibilities of statecraft, it may impose upon the nation 
greatly increased material sacrifice, yet it will also immensely 
strengthen the never-failing appeal to patriotism. 

It is also important to remember that whatever the navy 
Germany may create, it will be an efficient navy. The attention 
to detail, the system and method, the scientific spirit, the ac- 
curate adaptation of means to ends, and the infinite capacity for 
taking pains which have made the army what it is will not be 
wanting in the administration of the sea force. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
THE COLONIES 


Early colonial enterprises—The modern colonial movement—Angra Pequena— 
Prince Bismarck’s short method—His unwillingness to lead the move- 
ment—His principles of colonisation —‘‘Governing merchant, not 
governing bureaucrat’—The reaction and its causes—Financial cost 
to the Empire—The wars and insurrections—Administrative deficiencies 
—Government on Prussian principles—The ‘‘ colonial scandals ’’—Herr 
Dernburg’s policy—The excesses of the white traders—The Herero rising 
—The force theory of colonisation. 


NE of the many German historians of the colonial move- 
ment dates his story from the end of the Crusades, while 
another, not to be outdone in the national virtue of thoroughness, 
seeks his origins in the shadowy vistas of pre-Christian annals. 
For practical purposes the German colonial movement, as we 
know it to-day, is barely a quarter of a century old. 

There were genuine if tentative efforts at colonisation as early 
as the seventeenth century, when the Great Elector of Branden- 
burg (who reigned 1640-1688) established settlements on the 
West Coast of Africa. Had his policy of foreign enterprise 
been supported by his successors Prussia might have ranked 
to-day amongst the foremost of Colonial Powers; for the Great 
Elector had all the instincts of our Elizabethan adventurers. 
‘‘The surest wealth and the credit of a land come from its 
commerce,” he wrote; ‘‘shipping and trade are the most 
honourable pillars of a State.” He built a strong fleet, he 
traded, explored, fought, and buccaneered, and at the close of 
his reign Brandenburg seemed to be on the threshold of a great 
maritime career. larlier still the Hanseatic Free Cities 
would fain have traded in foreign territories as well as foreign 
merchandise, had not jealous eyes been turned on them at 

358 | 


THE COLONIES 359 


home. ‘‘ Not Clive but a Hamburg Senator,” said, and no 
doubt thought, the Wurtemberg publicist Moser, a hundred years 
ago, “‘ would command the Ganges to-day, had the aims of the 
German Hanseatic towns been supported instead of combated by 
the old Empire.” : 

But Prussia’s and Germany’s dreams, such as they were, of 
world-conquest and colonisation were dispelled when King Fred- 
erick William I. of Prussia (1718-1740), more concerned to 
assure and extend his sovereignty at home than to dissipate his 
strength upon foreign enterprises, abandoned the Great Elector’s 
settlements. The new policy was shared by Frederick the Great 
(1740-1786), who wrote in the collection of maxims which he 
prepared for the benefit of his successors, his ‘“‘ Exposé du 
gouvernement prussien,” ‘‘ All distant possessions are a burden 
to the State. A village on the frontier is worth a principality 
two hundred and fifty miles away.’’ Nearly a century and a 
half was to pass before the colonial question again seriously 
entered German politics. 

German colonial enthusiasts are in the habit of dating the 
moder movement from 1874, when Great Britain, to their 
country’s dismay, annexed the Fiji Islands, in which German 
trade had long flourished. But if the feeling which this addition 
to the British Crown created in German commercial circles was 
one of resentment and bitterness, it cannot be said to have 
created a colonial spirit. About this time, nevertheless, the 
explorer Gustav Nachtigal (1834-1885) visited various parts 
of Africa, carrying presents to native chiefs from the German 
Emperor, though he made no attempt to acquire territory. If 
Germany had at that time any serious intention of colonising, 
it was a fatal mistake that its attentions were directed towards 
regions which had already passed into the British sphere of 
influence. At the beginning of the ‘seventies the greater 
part of North and Central Africa was still no-man’s land, and 
an energetic policy of exploration, discreetly supported by diplo- 
macy at home, might not merely have secured to Germany 
rich regions which soon afterwards fell to some of its Continental 
neighbours, but might even have obstructed the consolidation of 
_ British influence which has happily been consummated in the 
southern half of the African continent. There was, however, 
no appreciation of colonial aims in Germany at that time, and 


360 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


all the nation’s effort was directed towards developing at home 
the advantages which had followed from the successful war with 
France. It was only in 1883 that the first colonial society, the 
Kolonial-Verein; came upon the scene. Up to then there was 
no systematic colonial enterprise and no organised colonial party 
in Germany. 

It was the Bremen trader Herr Luderitz who gave to Ger- 
many the earliest of its existing colonial possessions. In 1882 
Herr Luderitz, by treaties with native chiefs, acquired land in 
the bay of Angra Pequena, on the South-West Coast of Africa, 
and he pressed the home Government to support his claim. 
For a time nothing was done, until the claims of Herr Luderitz 
were disputed by agents of the British Crown. But for this 
conflict it is probable that the German colonial movement might 
not only have been delayed still longer, but might not have taken 
its later aggressive form. ‘The appeal of a German subject for 
protection roused Prince Bismarck’s interest, however, and, as 
the negotiations with this country did not come to a speedy 
issue, he abruptly solved the difficulty by formally annexing 
Luderitzland. On April 24, 1884, he telegraphed to the Ger- 
man Consul-General in Capetown: ‘‘ According to the represen- 
tations of Herr Luderitz the English colonial authorities doubt 
whether his acquisitions north of the Orange River can claim 
Germany's protection. Declare publicly that both Herr 
Luderitz and his settlements are under the protection of the 
Empire.” The transaction gave to Germany the coastland 
extending from the Orange River to Cape Frio, exclusive of 
Walfish Bay. 

What happened in South-West Africa happened, too, in the 
North-West. German claims to territory on the Cameroon River 
led likewise to disputes, and here also Prince Bismarck cut 
the Gordian knot instead of waiting for it to be unravelled. In 
the Pacific German settlements had been established since 
1880 for trading purposes on the north coast of New Guinea, 
and over these, as well as the New Britain Islands, the Ger- 
man flag was hoisted in the winter of 1884. These two new 
acquisitions were promptly renamed, the one being called Kaiser 
Wilhelm’s Land and the other Bismarck Archipelago. 

The following year saw fresh annexations in Hast Africa, to 
develop which a wealthy company was formed, and in the Pacific 


THE COLONIES 361 


the Marshall Islands and part of the Solomon group were also 
acquired. 

The treaties under which arises declared a protectorate 
over the East African regions were concluded by Dr. Karl 
Peters, an ardent colonial pioneer who entirely subordinated 
means to ends, and who, as Governor of East Africa, earned 
notoriety some years later on account of acts which led to his 
disappearance from the Colonial service. 

Each of these annexations served as a starting-point for 
large extensions of territory, so that after two years of diligent 
search and salvage amongst the still unregarded regions of the 
African Continent and the Pacific, Germany found itself in 
possession of a colonial Empire having an area of 877,000 
square miles—nearly twice the area of the Empire at home— 
and an estimated population of 1,750,000. In January, 1885, 
the Imperial Chancellor could say, ‘‘ The colonial movement has 
been in flux for two years, and the reception given to it has far 
surpassed my expectations.” 

The efforts and enterprise of this first period of modern colo- 
nisation were not, however, the outcome of any systematic 
policy of commercial expansion, nor were they consciously 
designed to retain under the German flag the stream of emi- 
gration which had flowed out of the country in increased volume 
since 1871. Colonisation was in the air, and the movement 
infected Germany as national movements always do infect an 
emotional and enthusiastic people. That there was at that time 
any genuine comprehension of the question and the immense 
issues if involved may be doubted. It was an ebullition of 
feeling, a mania, rather than a reasoned national policy; the 
principal colonial advocates in those days were less practical 
politicians and hard-headed men of business than Pan-Germanic 
idealists and sword-ratiling Chauvinists who regarded colonies 
as the natural appanage of empire. 

It is significant that Prince Bismarck, whose assistance alone 
made the colonial movement possible and national, never had 
great faith in colonies—so late as 1899 he declared that he was 
* still no colony man ”’—and it is probable that if he could have 
had his way he would not have touched the question. His policy 
was consolidation at home; the guiding principle of his action 
since 1871 had been that Germany was to be counted amongst 


362 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


the ‘‘satiated States’’ which needed no further aggrandisement ; 
and he regarded the pursuit of uncertain schemes of power 
abroad as untimely, if not dangerous. When at last he allowed 
himself to be persuaded to inaugurate a colonial policy he did it 
admittedly ‘‘ with little confidence in its expediency yet with 
unreserved confidence from the standpoint of State duty.” 
For, as we have seen, the obligation of asserting Imperial protec- 
tion over territories in which German subjects had acquired a lien 
was forced upon him, yet having once staked the reputation of 
the Empire upon the colonial movement he championed it, so 
long as he knew the country to be behind him, as though it had 
involved the existence of the Prussian monarchy. 

If ever, indeed, Prince Bismarck distrusted his own judgment 
it was on the colonial question. From the first he acted on the 
principle that if he were to saddle himself with a colonial policy 
it must be on the express demand of the nation; for he would 
not undertake the responsibility on his own account. Hence he 
insisted that the nation must make known its deliberate convic- 
tions and wishes on the subject, not once but repeatedly, before 
he could accept a definite mandate. When the colonial projects 
received Liberal opposition he did not altogether resent it, but 
deemed it his duty to ask the nation whether it agreed or not 
with the Government’s attitude. He said in 1884 :— 

‘Tn such a case it would be the duty of the federal Govern- 
ments to convince themselves whether the sentiment of the 
nation in the new elections shares the hostility shown by the 
present majority of the Reichstag, in which case the judgment 
would once more be definitely pronounced upon our colonial 
endeavour, or whether it was of different mind. I do not regard 
this question as settled, and I am far from wishing to answer 
it: I simply state dispassionately what I regard to be the duty of 
the federal Governments, which is to carry forward our colonial 
policy so long as they have reason to hope that a majority of the 
German nation are behind them, but to drop it should this hope 
be unjustified, instead of pursuing unfruitful enterprises in a 
strugele with a majority of the Reichstag.”’ 

To quote again (from a speech of the same year) :— 

‘‘In order to be able to carry on a colonial policy successfully 
a Government must have behind it in Parliament, so far as it is 
a constitutional Government and is dependent on Parliament, a 


THE COLONIES 363 


solid majority national in sentiment, a majority which is superior 
to the momentary decline of individual parties. Without such 
a reserve of force in the background we cannot carry on 
colonial policy. The national energy, when neutralised by party 
struggles, is not strong enough with us to encourage the Govern- 
ment to undertake the step which we first tried in the case of 
Samoa in 1880.” 

Not only so, but Prince Bismarck foresaw the difficulty of 
colonising in the English sense. He did not view lightly the 
obstacles of climate and national inexperience. Hence he never 
contemplated the immigration of white settlers into the colonies 
in the way in which Australia and Canada have been won for 
the British race. Nor, on the other hand, did he regard the 
German colonies as a means of establishing a Prussian system 
of bureaucracy across the seas. The colonies he had in mind 
were of the nature of trading stations, and traders were in the 
main to be responsible for their administration as well as for 
their industrial and commercial development. 

** My aim,” he said on October 28, 1885, “is the governing 
merchant and not the governing bureaucrat in those regions. 
Our privy councillors and expectant subalterns are excellent 
enough at home, but in the colonial teritories I expect more 
from the Hanseatics who have been there.”’ 

The principle was sound and statesmanlike, and it would have 
been well for Germany and its colonial empire if-it had been 
consistently applied; for then much failure, disappointment 

and loss, and many scandals would have been avoided. 

The student of German character and political thought will, it 
he goes beneath the surface of things, find a profound significance 
in the fact that the colonial movement which was inaugurated with 
such a fanfare of national exaltation, insomuch that for a time the 
nation was “colony mad,” became twenty-five years later, for a 
time at least, one of the most controverted questions in imperial” , 
politics, so that quite recently the new Colonial Secretary, Herr 
Dernburg, had to itinerate the Empire, appealing to his countrymen 
of all classes not to give up hope but to create a new “‘ colonial 
impulse.” ‘‘ Help us,” he said to an audience of Berlin pro- 
fessors and artists on January 8, 1907, ‘‘ to make the impulse 
without which, in Bismarck’s words, no colonial policy can be 
- successful,” and this was the burden of a succession of elec- 


364 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


tion speeches delivered in Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfort, and 
elsewhere. 


It is worth while inquiring into some of the reasons for the 


nation’s failure to sustain the first colonial enthusiasm. The 
reasons are many, and several of them have a vital bearing 
upon the future of Germany’s colonial empire, and suggest, if 
they do not justify, doubts whether even now, under conditions 
perhaps more favourable than ever before, the success of the 
colonial movement is absolutely assured. 

And first, the opponents of colonisation point out with truth 
that, far from the colonies having yielded any tangible gain, 
they have involved the Empire in enormous expenditure, in 
a succession of wars and military enterprises which have cost 
the country thousands of lives; they have not yet improved the 
reputation of the country as a civilising Power; and they have 
introduced fresh elements of discord into foreign relationships. 

What the colonies have cost the Empire in money in the 
form of annual subsidies, in the cost of wars, in the postal and 
steamship grants, and in administrative expenses at home is a 
bill which as yet has never been made out in full, and in the 
absence of a knowledge of all details no two estimates are 
alike. According to a statement furnished to the Reichstag at 
the request of the Budget Commission in the spring of 1907, the 
various protectorates had cost the Empire up to the end of the 
fiscal year 1906, 640 millions of marks, or, roughly, £32,000,000. 
Of this amount there fell to East Africa £4,550,000, to 
Cameroon £1,275,000, to Togo £200,000, to South-West 
Africa £4,700,000, to New Guinea £350,000, to the Archi- 
pelagoes £125,000, to Samoa £70,000, and to Kiauchou 
£5,100,000. To this total of £32,000,000 must be added, 
however, £1,000,000 paid to Spain on account of the cession by 
Spain of the Caroline, Marianne, and Pelew Islands, £175,000 
as the cost of quelling the principal rising in East Africa, and 
£32,000,000 expended on the South-West African War, making 
altogether over sixty-five million pounds. Nor does even this 
sum take account of the cost of the Chinese expedition, which 
was £23,300,000, or of the mail steamship subventions, the 
telegraphs, the railways, and the naval extensions. Counting, 
however, only the items of expenditure which have been specified, 
an aggregate of eighty-eight millions sterling is arrived at for 


ema ttl tam. amen ie en Nomen ei 


ote: 
ae, 


es 


THE COLONIES 365 


the past twenty-two years, representing four millions per annum. 
It is true that the Colonial Secretary has prepared an estimate 
which stops at £35,000,000, or £1,590,000 per annum, but 
extraordinary war and much other expenditure is here disregarded. 
This debt of the colonies to the Empire has only partly been 
paid; a heavy balance has been handed forward in the form 
of loans. 

Moreover, instead of declining the burden has been growing 
heavier from year to year. In 1885 the cost of the colonies 
to the mother-country was £17,400. In 1905 (counting that 
portion of the cost of the South-West African campaign which 
fell to that year) it was over nine million pounds. Even now 
that the colonial empire is for a time free from wars, and 
abnormal expenditure from that cause is ceasing, there is no 
likelihood of the expenditure falling for some time to come 
below two million pounds yearly. 

It is no more possible to estimate accurately the loss of life 


~~ which has been caused by the colonial wars. Military under- 


takings, either aggressive or defensive, have made up the entire 
history of several of the African colonies. Not to go back too 
far, the annals of Cameroon from 1891 to 1903 were annals of 
bloodshed. 

There were twenty-nine punitive expeditions of all kinds, with 
three regular campaigns and ten battles, apart from various minor 
warlike incidents of an unpleasant nature, like ambush surprises. 
In 1901 alone twelve expeditions were carried out against various 


tribes. Since 1904 there have been in the same colony no fewer 


than seventeen military expeditions of one kind and another. 
The losses have not been heavy, but the warlike operations 
which are still found necessary testify to the land’s continual 
unrest. 

The record of the East African colony during the years 
1891 to 1908 included nine punitive expeditions, seven other 
expeditions against chiefs and tribes, and four campaigns, 
including thirty battles of varying degrees of importance. 

Still more sanguinary is the record of German South-West 
Africa. There the years 1893 and 1894 brought the expeditions 
of Governor Leutwein against the Witbois, and between 1894 
and 1901 there were four other campaigns with nine battles and 
an insurrection. In November, 1903, the Bondelzwarts rose in 


3866 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


rebellion, and thereafter came the Herero rising and the great 
campaign which only ended at the close of 1906. The South- 
West African War cost from first to last 90 officers and 1,321 
men killed (by wounds and disease) and missing, besides 907 
wounded.* 

The Hereros suffered still more severely. They are believed 
to have numbered 65,000 men when the rebellion broke out; 
to-day they have been decimated to a third of that number; 
and if, as has been alleged, they took the lives of 120 white 
farmers, their crime has, at any rate, been amply avenged. 

Then, too, the colonial administration has not, on the whole, 
been happy in its methods nor yet in its officials. The principle 
laid down by Prince Bismarck was soon departed from: the 
trader, having obtained Government protection, went back to his 
plantation, his compound, his stores; he certainly was not urged 
or even asked to play any part in the government of his colony, 
as he was to have done. Tradition proved too strong even for 
Prince Bismarck, and gradually the whole system of Prussian 
bureaucracy was introduced into each of the colonies, large and 
small, and Great Berlin at home was reproduced in a score of 
small Berlins in all parts of Africa and the Pacific. 

Here the national habit of preceding practice by theory was 
abandoned. The Germans never went to school in colonial 
matters. They light-heartedly took upon themselves the 
governing of vast territories and diverse races in the confident 
belief that the ‘‘ cameral sciences’’ which had for generations 
proved an efficient preparation for local administration at home 
would qualify equally well for Africa. The secret of the adminis- 
trative order that reigns at home is ‘‘ system,’’ and it was taken 
for granted that if sufficient “‘ system ’’ were introduced into the 
government of the colonies the same results would follow. If 

* The official return, covering the period 1904 to 1907, published by the 


Great General Staff, gave the following details :— 
(a) Losses in Battles and by Accidents. 


Officers, Sanitary Non-commissioned 
Officers, and Officials. Officers and Privates Total. 
Dead emits 614 676 
Missing... be’ ye 74 76 
Wounded ar BO 818 907 
Totals 153 1,506 1,659 


(b) Died of Disease. 
6 


2 663 659 


be 


THE COLONIES 367 


‘system ”’ alone could have built up a stable colonial empire, 
and given it tranquillity, prosperity, and civilisation, these ends 
would long ago have been attained. Here likewise the new 
Colonial Secretary, Herr Dernburg, has had the courage to 
confess to shortcomings which his predecessors have either not 
detected or have been reluctant to face. 

In one of the speeches to which reference has been made he 
said :— 

‘It has been said that the Germans are bad and defective 
colonists. But why should we be bad colonists? Are we bad 
merchants? Our competitors all over the world say the reverse; 
and the attempts to repulse us instead of help us say the same. 
Are we bad seamen? Our mercantile marine, which since 1882 
has increased its share in the trade of the Suez Canal by 15°6 per 
cent., so that it now amounts to a quarter of the English transit 
trade on this great waterway, proves the contrary. Are we bad 
soldiers? Never. Then why should we be bad colonists? 
The answer lies in the fact that we have not undergone the 
colonial apprenticeship which other nations have gone through. 
Germany is at present the first of countries in the matter of 
applied technics. But how long it took us to attain to this pre- 
eminence in the world! We did it by zealous and diligent 
study. Germany lias a great mercantile marine, and in regard 
to passenger transport across the sea it takes the first place. 
But how long and how industriously have we worked, how long 
and industriously have we studied other nations! But colonisa- 


‘tion is a science and technique just like the rest; it must be 


learnt not only in the lecture-room, in legal practice, and 
in the counting-house, but by studying the needs and con- 
ditions of foreign lands on the spot, and by the application of all 
the auxiliaries which science—and above all the science of our 
neighbours—affords.”’ 


|. Furthermore, far too little regard was paid to native customs 
’ and traditions of life. Instead of studying native law and 


custom systematically, and regulating administration in each 
colony according to its peculiar traditions and circumstances, all 
colonies alike were governed on a sort of lex Germanica, consist- 
ing of Prussian legal maxims pedantically interpreted in a narrow 
bureaucratic spirit by jurists with little experience of law, with 
less of human nature, and with none at all of native usages. 


368 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


No one has more frankly acknowledged the errors made owing to 
this cause than Herr Dernburg. 

‘Tt is not necessary,” he has said, ‘‘ that a district judge 
buried in the interior of Africa should be a thoroughly trained 
judicial official, so long as he is a man of good common-sense 
and knows the people and their language and customs. The 
requirements there are so fundamentally different that when in 
our colonies things often occur which look like ‘ assessorism’ or 
bureaucracy no sensible man can wonder at it. The officials go 
there fresh to the work, they take their professional ideas with 
them, and they exaggerate their functions.’’ Further: ‘‘ Not 
excess of regulations and bureaucratic methods (is necessary), 
but men with sound common-sense and open mind, who do not 
attempt too many things at once, and only use the pressure of 
the new government when it is absolutely necessary to the fulfil- 
ment of their limited duties.” 

It is largely owing to the transplanting in the past of the 
Prussian system of ‘‘regimentation’’ in its most inelastic form to 
the utterly uncongenial conditions of native life that the natives 
have in general felt uncomfortable under their new rulers. To 
quote Herr Dernburg again :— 

** When violence is done to ancient ways of life and tribal laws, 
when—1in all sincerity and with the best intentions—a crusade. 
is waged against superstition, when legal conceptions are grafted 
upon native life where a corresponding sentiment of law is 
lacking, when German ways of administration are applied with 
the exactitude of the High Court of Exchequer at Potsdam, 
when the negroes, whose productivity in the tropics is restricted 
in part by unfamiliarity with labour, in part by the terrible 
climate, are driven too hard, and when—I say it with full 
deliberation—there exist many evil and cruel customs which 
cannot under all circumstances be ignored, a condition of con- 
tinual conflict is inevitably created.” 

Undoubtedly officialism made too little allowance for the 
tenacity of native traditions, was too brusque in its dealings 
with native usages and institutions—in a word, tried to 
‘‘civilise’’ too quickly. ‘‘It must be frankly acknowledged,” 
said the leader of the German People’s Party in the Reichstag 
on March 24, 1906, ‘‘ that the German Government has simply 
abolished the existing civil laws of the natives in the German 


THE COLONIES 369 


colonies. That was bound to excite discontent. The legal 
position of the blacks is miserable in the extreme. The honour 
of the German name suffers under this absolutely arbitrary 
system. We have lost the sympathy of the black race.” Not 
until the summer of 1907 did the Colonial Office appoint a 
Commission for the study and codification of native law in 
the various colonies. It is impossible to say how many errors 
and failures would have been avoided, how many wars, great and 
little, might have been spared, had this natural course been 
adopted twenty years ago. 

Professor F. von Luschan, of the Berlin University, and 
director of the Ethnological Museum in that city, said on 
February 17, 1906, in a public lecture :— 

‘‘What I have for years repeatedly declared has been told 
me by several high British colonial officials as the result of 
their many years’ experience—that all European officials in 
the protected territories will sooner or later come to grief if 
they treat the natives badly, that is, roughly, disparagingly, 
cruelly, and unjustly, while, on the other hand, genuine success 
in colonial enterprise can only be achieved by those Europeans 
who interest themselves personally in the natives. ...I am 
entirely convinced that our late war in South-West Africa 
might easily have been avoided, and that it was simply a 
result of the disparagement which ruled in the leading circles 
regarding the teachings of ethnology. Taught by bitter 
experience, we shall now be compelled to study the native in 
our colonies, simply because he is the most important product 
of the soil, which never can be supplanted by any substitute, 
and must therefore be regarded as absolutely indispensable.” 

Worse still, the choice of colonial officials has not, in. many 
cases, been a happy one. Some of the governors sent out to 
the African protectorates have done infinite credit to their 
country and to themselves; for Dr. von Wissmann was not 
by any means the only high official who, in Prince Bismarck’s 
phrase, returned home “ with a white waistcoat.” But when 
justice has been done to the fine flower of the colonial service— 
men who carried with them to difficult and dangerous posts 
a high sense of public duty and a high standard of 
personal rectitude—the fact remains that the administration 
of most of the colonies has been tarnished at one time or 

25 


370 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


another by ‘‘scandals’’ which have left an evil odour and 
have given the enemies of colonisation just cause to 
blaspheme. The colonies were for a long time looked upon 
as a happy hunting-ground for adventurers who could not 
settle down to steady work at home, or a sort of early Australia 
to which family failures might conveniently be sent. Ifa man 
succeeded at nothing else he was thought good enough for 
colonial service, and many shady careers were closed in Ger- 
many, only to be reopened across the seas. For while 
forgotten by their friends at home, the very defects of character 
which made it prudent for these questionable characters to seek 
new life in the distant tropics were responsible for many of the 
excesses and crimes which have from time to time come to light 
in administration, and which, more than anything else, caused 
the colonial empire and colonial policy altogether to sound 
disagreeable in honest ears. 

A Liberal deputy said in the Reichstag not long ago: 
‘The causes of the fiasco in our colonial endeavours are 
various. The choice of officials has been very unfortunate. 
The colonies are regarded as relief institutions for the 
benefit of men who have failed at home.” This charge can 
no longer be made, though it is only recently that a new 
spirit has entered into the colonial service generally. One 
enthusiastic advocate of colonial enterprise has seriously claimed 
that colonies should be established in order that ‘‘ the swamps 
of our social life might be drained, their dirty waters let off and 
cleansed.”’ : 

In the Speech from the Throne with which the Reichstag 
was opened on November 22, 1888, when the colonial move- 
ment was at its height and a good deal of genuine idealism 
clung to the minds of its prophets and preachers, it was de- 
clared that it must be a solemn duty of the Empire to ‘“‘win 
the Dark Continent for Christian civilisation.”’ Not much 
Christian civilisation, or civilisation of any kind, was carried 
to the colonies by the early pioneers and administrators, 
nor yet by some of their successors. Stories of slavery, 
violence, cruelty, illegality, and lust, committed both by officials 
and planters, were sent home only too frequently by missionaries 
and clean-handed men in the colonial service who could 
not see these things and be silent, and disciplinary proceed- 


THE COLONIES 371 


ings at home generally confirmed the imputations of report, 
and frequently proved that the half had not been told. It 
would serve no purpose to detail these stories or to further 
pillory the men whose crimes were visited by punishment, and 
that the less as the whole record stands written in many German 
books, official and otherwise, for as to the facts there is no dis- 
pute. In one of the most notorious cases, however, a colonial 
governor was found guilty of brutality, of taking lives unjustifiably, 
and of being prompted by sensual motives to acts of vindictive- 
ness, and he was deprived of office and titles. Another governor 
more lately was fined and reprimanded—he had already been 
relieved of office—for forging a passport for a paramour whom he 
had audaciously set up by his side in the place of administration. 
A third governor has, under Herr Dernburg’s régime, been 
dismissed the service for torturing a native chief to death by 
flogging him and chaining him to a flagstaff for thirty-six 
hours without food or water. These cases are typical of the 
worst crimes which have been committed by high officials, 
but the entire record makes a terrible story of obliquity and 
moral deterioration. 

On his acceptance of office Herr Dernburg promised that, 
however many brooms might be needed, the Augean stables of 
administrative irregularity in the colonies should be cleansed, 
and that the cleansing should not be necessary a second time. It 
is infinitely to his credit that he has faithfully kept his promise. 

Where there has been laxity on the part of. officials.it.is. not 
surprising that the conduct of the white traders has often been 
far from exemplary. The notions of obligation towards the 
native races which are entertained by many of the spokesmen of 
the colonial cause are, to say the least, frankly negative. 
Perhaps it is fairer that German witnesses should here speak, 
and, indeed, no stronger words have been written in condemna- 
tion of the ill-treatment of the natives and colonial scandals in 
general than those which have come from leaders of German 
public opinion. 

‘The entire colonial policy,’’ wrote Major-General Baron H. 
von Puttkamer in July, 1907, “‘is-based on the principle of 
Kuropeans depriving the inferior natives in foreign lands by 
main force of their land and maintaining our position there by 
force.”’ 


872 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Captain Schennemann, who was appointed to report on the 
origin of the risings in Cameroon of 1904-5, which required 
several expeditions, after stating the faults of the natives, 
added : ‘‘ It is equally indubitable that gross indiscretions on the 
part of the white traders in the treatment of these militant 
cannibal tribes were the occasion of the catastrophe.” 

Another writer says of the causes of the same troubles :— 

‘‘ After the rising of the Bakwiri in the Cameroon Mountains 
the Government declared their entire territory Crown land. All 
the land capable of cultivation was then sold to large plantation 
companies at the price of 5s. per hectare. Only 14 to 2 
hectares per family were reserved for the support of the natives. 
It would have proved sufficient if the natives followed rational 
agriculture and if the reserved lands had everywhere been 
cultivable, though no provision was made for future increase of 
population. The result was, however, that great scarcity soon 
appeared amongst the Bakwiri, and the discontent increased to 
such an extent that a rising was apprehended ; for it was not 
enough that the natives were robbed of their land, they were 
robbed also o1 their cattle. Many planters carried on the 
capture of cattle as a sport, and boasted how much ‘ fresh meat’ 
they obtained for their companies in this way. The Government 
and the planters may thank the efforts of the Basle Missionary 
Society that a bloody rising was prevented.”’ * 

The writer points out further that the missionaries had agreed 
at first to act as labour agents for the planters, but ‘‘ When they 
saw how cruelly the labourers were often treated on the planta- 
tions, how in the course of a year the fourth part of them died 
off and had to serve as manure for the land, while the greater 
part of the remainder became seriously ill, and when they saw 
how through the brandy which was thrust upon them and the 
evil example of the most of their masters the labourers sank 
ever lower, they could not face the responsibility before God 
and their consciences of being parties to such an unjust and 
wicked business.”’ 

Incidents like this explain the frequent attacks upon the 
missionaries, who often stand between the natives and injustice 
and violence. ‘They also give point to the incriminating apology 


* J. Scholze in ‘‘ Deutsche Kolonien”’ (‘* The Truth about the Mission to 
the Heathen and its Opponents’’). 


ee, 


THE COLONIES 373 


of the colonial enthusiast who wrote: ‘‘ The missionaries have 
often made themselves obnoxious to the merchants. It must be 
remembered that the merchants who go out to the colonies even 
to-day are not men of mild natures, who are contented to pass 
their lives on the turnstools of a dull counting-house, but are 
possessed of a superabundance of energy, and now and then 
this energy takes forms which, it must be admitted, cannot be 
pleasing to the missionaries.”’ 

No one doubts that the behaviour of the traders was the main 
cause of the insurrection of the Hereros which culminated in a 
costly and sanguinary three years’ campaign. The Conservative 
Cross Gazette wrote at the time: ‘‘ Unscrupulous traders have 
been allowed to exploit the inexperience and the recklessness 
of the Hereros. The debts contracted with the white traders 
had enormously increased during recent years, while villages 
had mortgaged their cattle and their entire land with their 
creditors.” 

A missionary, Pastor Meyer, confirmed this: ‘‘The traders 
took from the Hereros their land, though they had paid their 
debts four or five times over, since no receipts were given, and 
400 per cent. was charged. By taking from the Hereros one 
piece of land after another settlers who had come to the country 
poor were soon in possession of farms.” 

When the rising broke out a white resident wrote home from 
Outjo (January 27, 1904): ‘‘ Most of the traders are said to 
have been murdered, and in their ‘fate one can only see a not 
unjustifiable act of vengeance on the part of the natives, who 
have avenged the unscrupulous outrages and plundering of the 
traders. » The traders plundered the natives systematically. 
Every one took what he wanted. Thus one dealer in 
November last drove away from a dock cattle worth £1,400.” 
The Herero who wrote to his kinsmen from British South 
Africa, ‘‘Let me tell you that the land of the English is 
probably a good land since there is no ill-treatment; white 
and black stand on the same level; there is much work and 
much money, and your overseer does not beat you, or if he 
does he breaks the law and is punished,” hinted plainly enough 
at the sort of treatment to which the native was accustomed in 
his own country. 

Even now the use of force as the only method of civilising the 


374. THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


4 
native is advocated with daring frankness. Herr Schlettwein, 
one of the Government’s experts who was recently called in to 
instruct the members of the Budget Committee of the Reichstag 
on the principles of colonisation, writes in a pamphlet published 
in 1904 :— 

‘“TIn colonial politics we stand at the parting of the ways—on 
the one side the aim must be healthy egoism and practical 
colonisation, and on the other exaggerated humanitarianism, 
vague idealism, irrational sentimentality. The Hereros must 
be compelled to work and to work without compensation and in 
return for their food only. Forced labour for years is only a 
just punishment, and at the same time it is the best method of 
training them. The feelings of Christianity and philanthropy, 
with which the missionaries work, must for the present be 
repudiated with all energy.” 

The new Colonial Secretary has never professed any idea of 
colonising on purely sentimental principles, yet he has declared 
his intention to mete even-handed justice to native and European 
alike, an attitude which brings him into perpetual and irrecon- 
cilable conflict with the traders, whose violent methods he has 
never hesitated to expose. 

‘‘ The planters,” he told the Budget Committee on the colonial 
estimates on February 18, 1908, “are at war with everybody— 
with myself, with the Government, with the local officials, and 
finally with the natives. Their only principle is to make as 
much money as possible and keep wages as low as possible.”’ 
He also stated: ‘‘On the coast (of German East Africa) it 
makes a very unfavourable impression on one to see so many 
white men go about with negro whips. I even found one 
on the table of the principal pay office in Dar-es-Salam; 
it is still the usual thing, and any one who has been there will 
confirm what I say.’ He added that in Kast Africa “labourers 
were obtained under circumstances which could not be dis- 
tinguished from slave hunts.” ‘‘ The State is asked,” he said, 
‘‘always to carry a whip in its hand. We shall do no such 
thing; for in the event of risings it is we who have to bear 
the brunt of the mischief.’’ He told the same Committee that 
when in that colony ‘‘a young farmer came to him and told him 
that he had ‘bought’ 150 negroes. It has even happened that 
settlers have seated themselves at the wells with revolvers, and 


THE COLONIES 375 


have prevented the natives from watering their cattle, in order to 
compel them to leave the yer behind.”’ 

A further reason of the ‘‘ colonial pessimism” of several 
’ years ago was the traders’ disappointment that their unnatural 
expectation of immediate success, in the form of profits and 
dividends, had not been fulfilled. Admiral Raule, the colonial 
adviser of the Great Elector, reported to his master on one 
occasion: ‘‘ No man is so unreasonable as to expect fruit from 
a newly-planted tree.’ That might have been the case in 
the patient seventeenth century, but it did not apply to the 
modern German colonist; and because the fruit did not come 
at once he blamed the tree, and at last showed a desire to hew 
it down as a useless cumberer of the ground. 

Moreover, in colonial politics, as in other departments of 
politics, the Government has been treated to a superfiuity of 
criticism, far too little of which has been of a helpful kind. 
There was excuse for this during the heated period of the 
‘scandals’? in 1904 and 1905, but the national outburst of 
anger which these scandals created was merely an embittered 
form of a controversy which had gone on for years. All parties 
alike had their share in the controversy, though the honours for 
endurance and versatility fell to the Radicals and Social Demo- 
erats. This constant and for the most part querulous stream of 
negative criticism gave the officials at home no fair chance of doing 
steady work and of devoting themselves undividedly to the develop- 
ment of the colonies. Prince Hohenlohe had to confess in Sep- 
tember, 1906, when he retired from the thankless presidency of 
the then Colonial Department of the Foreign Office, that ‘‘ The 
continued attacks of the Press and the examination into the 
truth of its accusations monopolised the time of my official staff.” 

‘¢ That which has been wanting in Germany is a conviction of 
the excellence of our cause,” said Herr Dernburg to a colonial 
conference in Stuttgart in 1907. Itis true that this conviction 
has been wanting, but there has been wanting quite as much a 
genuine understanding of the colonial movement, an appreciation 
of the meaning of colonies, the right methods for their develop- 
ment, and the obligations which the possession of colonies 
imposes upon a ruling Power. The reaction which set in, and 
which reached its greatest strength just before the present Colonial 
Secretary came into office, was thus the resultant of a multitude of 


876 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


causes, each operating with varying weight upon a different section 
ofthe community. So fardid the “‘ colony weariness ”’ go that at 
a conference of the Radical party held at Wiesbaden in September, 
1905, a resolution was adopted against ‘‘ the continuance and 
extension of the present colonial policy,’’ while one member of 
the Parliamentary group declared, amid applause, that he 
** would be willing to put the colonies up to auction if he thought 
a bid would be forthcoming.’’ Since 1907 this party has been 
foremost in supporting the revived colonial movement. 


CHAPTER XIX 
THE NEW COLONIAL ERA 


The new departure in 1907—A Secretaryship of State for the Colonies—Herr 
Dernburg’s colonial crusade—The appeal to national pride and interest 
—The colonies as sources of raw material—Natural wealth of the 
colonies—The cotton plantations—A propagandism of promises— 
‘** Colonial legends ’’—Distrust of the trading classes—Disagreement of 
colonial authorities—Present condition of the colonies—Area and popula- 
tion—Imperial subsidies—Revenue and trade of the colonies—The 
labour problem—The prospects of South-West Africa—The decimation 
of the Hereros—The need of railways in the colonies—The objects of 
the colonial movement—The nation’s honour at stake—Unity of parties 
on the question—Attitude of the Social Democrats—The Stuttgart 
Congress of 1907—The inevitableness of a colonial army—England and 
German colonial ambitions. 


HE colonies may be said to have entered a new phase of 
development with the creation in May, 1907, of a Colonial 
Office with large independent powers. Before that time there 
was a Colonial Department attached to the Foreign Office and 
subject to the direct authority of the Foreign Minister. The 
result was that the work of colonial administration was hampered 
at every turn. Successive Foreign Ministers had been willing 
enough to give the Colonial Director all desired liberty of action, 
yet they were unable to delegate to him constitutionally any of 
their own responsibility. The arrangement was bad for both 
sides—bad for the Foreign Office, upon which it imposed 
authority without executive functions, besides saddling it with 
a host of unnecessary burdens, and bad for the Colonial 
Department, which had executive duties without ultimate 
authority. 
As far back as Count Caprivi’s Chancellorship the Government 


tried to induce the Reichstag to create an independent Colonial 
377 . 


378 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Office, but time after time the scheme fell through. Prince 
Bulow’s chance came when in the winter of 1906 he threw over 
the Centre and rallied to his support a ‘‘block”’ consisting of the 
Conservatives, National Liberals, and Radicals. Herr Bernhard 
Dernburg, formerly general manager of the Dresden Bank, who 
had already been chosen to follow Prince Hohenlohe as Colonial 
Director, became the first Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
and though it will be a long time before the fruits of his new 
forward policy can show themselves, it is impossible to deny the 
energy and determination, and above all the infectious optimism, 
which he has brought to his work. He took office at a time of 
extreme difficulty, when the material and moral prestige of the 
colonial movement was at its lowest, and when no one had a good 
word to say for the colonies or anything that concerned them, and 
it is his unquestioned desert that a new and more confident opinion 
is held by the nation at large concerning Germany’s foreign 
empire. Inheriting from his predecessors in office an accumula- 
tion of obscure scandals and unfortunate ‘‘ incidents ’’—official 
immorality, administrative irregularities, contract extortions, and 
the like—he wisely determined to sift every discovered mis- 
demeanour and abuse to the bottom, dispensing justice without 
fear or favour. His courage has made him marty enemies, but 
it has won for him and the colonial cause far more friends. 

Herr Dernburg is a man of business pure and simple, in whose 
Jewish veins runs the spirit rather of finance than affairs. He 
professes no qualifications for diplomacy and has no intention 
that his practical objects shall be complicated with political 
issues. He is also without any decided prejudices as to the 
means by which colonial development should be furthered, except 
that he believes English methods to be better than German. 
Hence he trusts more to the railway than the green table, more 
to the trader than the administrator. He has made it his 
special aim to hold the colonies before his countrymen as 
‘‘a great Imperial concern which cannot prosper without a 
powerful impulse, without the co-operation of the noblest and 


best elements in the nation.’’ His programme was systematically — 


developed in the series of peripatetic addresses to which refer- 
ence has already been made—addresses spoken successively 
before audiences of scholars and artists, of industrialists and 
traders, and of general colonial propagandists. To the first of 


THE NEW COLONIAL ERA 379 


these audiences he expounded the national aspect of the colonial 
question, to the second the economic importance of the colonies 
from the standpoint of the export trade and the supply of raw 
material, to the third the necessary education of the nation 
which is essential to the right understanding of colonial policy, 
and the character of the training needed by colonial adminis- 
trators and pioneers. It was inevitable that the addresses 
should not have carried equal weight—that especially to which 
the professors of Berlin listened was patronisingly phrased in 
school text-book language in which the hearers were far more 
versed than the speaker, and it created much more criticism 
than it allayed—yet the national effect was immediate and 
surprising. 

Herr Dernburg rests his case for a more determined develop- 
ment of the colonies upon two appeals—the appeal to 
national pride and the appeal to national interest. He con- 
tends truly that Germany cannot with honour withdraw from 
the undertaking to which it has committed itself. 

‘*We have to answer the question: Does the nation feel 
strong and proud enough to refuse to abandon a mission of 
civilisation once begun; does it feel rich enough to incur further 
expenditure offering no prospect of immediate return, or will it, 
overcome by fear, pusillanimously withdraw under cover of the 
smoke produced by the cannoneers of the colonial scandals ? 
That there are politicians who are ready to give up the colonies 
is undoubted; that others have become very shy of them is 
also unfortunately true, and that a certain weariness of the 
colonies has set in generally cannot be disputed. In face of all 
this it is necessary to make it clear whether the German nation 
still believes itself able to fulfil a great mission, which requires 
certain sacrifices from every section of the community, or whether, 
basking in material comfort and intellectual ennui, it prefers to 
continue in the old inglorious ruts. 

‘*Not without right has the German nation been called the 
nation of thinkers and poets, and severe though the intellectual 
competition of the nations has become, Germany has always 
been able to maintain its position at the head of civilised nations 
in regard to the mental sciences. To this early wreath Germany 
has added another during the past century—the century in which 
it has come to the front of the nations in regard to the applied 


380 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


sciences and technics. These latter are, however, the modern 
means for the opening up of foreign territories, the elevation of 
low civilisations, the amelioration of the conditions of life for 
both blacks and whites, and it is for Germany to answer the 
question— Will it, inregard to its colonial possessions, abdicate the 
position which it has won, in stern, strenuous, and noble contest, 
of primacy in the mental sciences and in applied technics? 
That is the great question of the hour, and I am certain that 
when it is clearly understood the nation will answer with an 
energetic No!” 

The appeal to the commercial classes is pitched in a lower key: 
here the colonies are represented as essential to Germany’s 
industrial independence and its prosperity as a producing 
country. ‘‘ German colonial policy,” said Herr Dernburg to a 
conference of the German Chambers of Commerce in Berlin on 
January 11, 1907, ‘‘signifies nothing more nor less than a 
question of the future of national labour, a question of bread 
for many millions of industrial workers, and a question of the 
employment of domestic capital in trade, industry, and naviga- 
tion.”” With unconscious irony Herr Dernburg points to the 
growth of protective legislation abroad, the effect of which has 
been to shut out German goods by insurmountable barriers. 
Not only does Germany need wider markets, however; it needs 
quite as much new and surer sources of raw material, and these 
are to be found in the colonies. Herr Dernburg’s ultimate ideal 
is, in fact, the economic terra clausa, the self-contained Empire. 

‘* The process which we can see going on daily upon a small 
scale in our German industry has to a large extent—and here 
and there completely—been consummated in the world-market. 
The aim of the ‘great industry’ in Germany is clear, viz., as far 
as possible to bring into one hand the control of production in 
every stage, from the raw material to the finest processes of 
manufacture; thus, for example, in the iron industry to unite 
every process in a unity from the coal and ore mine to the building 
of an armoured war vessel, and it is the same in other industries. 
It is the purpose of this process of consolidation to attain the 
result of a self-contained industry, viz., by eliminating all 
superfluous factors, and by superseding the middle-man to the 
extremest degree possible, to create independent undertakings. 
This tendency, which you can observe in the German heavy 


THE NEW COLONIAL ERA 381 


industry, has also been more or less effected in world-economy 
during the last twenty years.”’ 

The potential wealth of the German colonies certainly never 
impressed the nation as it has impressed the new Colonial 
Secretary, who would appear to anticipate the time when Ger- 
many will obtain the bulk of the raw material needed by its 
industries as well as its tropical foodstuffs from its own colonies 
—a piece of good fortune which has not even fallen to Great 
Britain yet, in spite of its unique colonial empire and its much 
smaller population. Among the commodities, now almost entirely 
imported from other countries, which Germany, according to 
Herr Dernburg, ‘‘ can produce in its colonies” are cotton, wool, 
copper, rubber, petroleum, coffee, rice, oil fruits, and hemp, of 
all which fifty million pounds’ worth was imported in 1905. 

Of these products cotton is at present the most important. 
Herr Dernburg is assured that all the colonies are here eligible, 
and that they are capable of producing 24 million bales per 
annum, given the introduction of plough culture, an amount 
larger than Germany now consumes. ven under existing con- 
ditions of cultivation he places the present possible production 
at 100,000 bales, while plough culture would increase the yield 
fivefold, and a change from food crops to cotton would give five 
times more again. 

For the supply of wool—sheep’s wool and mohair—the Colonial 
Secretary relies upon South-West Africa. Hemp is grown in 
Togo, Cameroon, South-West Africa, and still more in East 
Africa. Cocoa is grown in Cameroon, Samoa, and other colonies, 
which export to Germany to the value of £65,000 annually, and 
coffee is grown in East Africa. 

As to oil fruits—palm oil, copra, and earth nuts—Herr Dern- 
burg has ‘‘ no doubt that the greater part of our requirements 
can be obtained from our own colonies without much difficulty.”’ 
These fruits are already produced in Cameroon, and still more in 
East Africa, where 1,750,000 acres of land are said to be suited 
to the cocoa palm, and if planted capable of yielding 700,000 tons 
of copra at one ton per hectare (24 acres), with a net return of 
£6 10s. per hectare. At present the colonies export to the value 
of £300,000. 

Rubber is already exported from the German colonies to the 
value of £300,000, more than a third coming from East Africa 


382 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


alone, while £5,000,000 is said to be invested in German 
rubber goods factories, which employ 30,000 workpeople. Not 
only East Africa, where nearly 2,000,000 trees have been planted, 
but Togo, Cameroon, New Guinea and Samoa all produce rubber. 
Yet the exports from the colonies form but a fraction of the 
country’s normal requirements. In 1905 Germany imported 
214,000 tons of rubber, of which only 1,306 tons came from 
the colonies. 

Timber is largely exported from the Hinterland of Togo, from 
Cameroon, and from East Africa. In East Africa alone there 
are 625,000 acres of forest—cedar, mahogany, &c.—near the 
coast, and one German merchant has 1,600 men engaged in the 
timber trade there. It is also estimated that in Kast Africa and 
Cameroon together there are 300,000 acres of mangrove with a 
value of over forty million pounds. 

As to minerals, copper is found in South-West Africa, in the 
Otavi mines and elsewhere, and there are German syndicates 
prospecting and mining in several other districts. In 1905, 
however, none of Germany’s imports of copper (102,218 
metric tons) came from the colonies. Petroleum is found in 
Cameroon. ; 

Of these various products cotton is being experimented 
with on the most extensive scale, and here there seems 
good hope of success directly sufficient capital shall have been 
sunk in the enterprise. The Government has come to the 
aid of the planters, and in 1907 the colonial budget allotted 
£5,250 towards the encouragement of cotton cultivation, while 
the Imperial Ministry of the Interior added a further £2,500 for 
the same purpose. Already two companies have acquired 150,000 
and 50,000 acres of land respectively in the neighbourhood of 
the Victoria Lakes with the intention of laying down the cotton 
plant; in the south of German East Africa 10,000 acres are 
under cotton; and in the neighbourhood of the Dar-es-Salam 
railway the Railway Company has itself begun to cultivate the 
plant. The lands most suitable for the purpose in East Africa. 
are the Lake regions, with an area estimated at from 750 to 
1,000 square miles, and the cotton now produced there is con- 
veyed to the coast by the Uganda Railway. In Togoland an 
agricultural school has been established for the instruction of — 
the young natives in cotton growing. When the pupils have 


THE NEW COLONIAL ERA 383 


passed through a course of teaching they are put on the land as 
independent cultivators on a small scale. In Cameroon the 
cultivation of cotton has begun in several districts both on the 
coast and in the interior, especially the hill country. Here the 
chief difficulty is the heavy cost of transport. In some regions 
the Government accepts taxes in cotton by way of encouraging 
the natives to cultivate the plant. Experiments are being made 
in New Guinea, but there a serious obstacle exists in the unwill- 
ingness of the natives to settle down to steady work. A 
beginning has also been made in South-West Africa. 

More lately an African Cotton Company has been formed at 
Herr Dernburg’s instigation, with a capital of £500,000, for 
the general development of cotton planting and trading in the 
colonies, and especially in East Africa, Togo, and Cameroon, and 
the textile industry at home has been induced to take interest in 
thescheme. Itis hoped that the Empire will assist by providing 
railways, so as to cheapen transport, for cotton borne by native 
carriers now costs 1s. per ton and kilometre against about 34d. 
charged on an average by such railways as convey cotton from 
the interior to the coast. 

As yet, however, the amount of cotton put on the market by 
the colonies is very small, and Germany itself only derives about 
one-thousandth part of its supplies from that source. It imported 
in 1905 over 402,000 metric tons, and of this amount 217 tons 
come from Kast Africa and 834 tons from Togo, whose cotton 
plantations are only six years old. Togo’s entire expert was 113 
tons, or 460 bales. In the season 1905-6 the entire crop of the 
colonies was about 500 tons, with a value of £30,000. The 
average prices were 73d. for West African cotton, 10d. for East 
African, and 1s. 1d. for Victoria Lake. 

As to the productivity of the colonies in general, the 
ardent advocates of an empire over the sea are indulging ex- 
pectations for which there would appear to be no justification 
either in fact or probability. They write and speak, for example, 
as though at some near date the colonies would supply raw 
materials to the mother-country at so low a price that trade 
rivalry with other lands in certain manufactured articles would 
be enormously facilitated and Germany would be able to establish 
a hold on the world-market such as it has not hitherto dared to 
hope for. Such enthusiasts forget that the colonial producer, 


384 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


however low his costs of production may be, will never be willing 
to sell below the highest price obtainable in competition with 
other producers. 

Herr Dernburg’s armoury of arguments is infinite in variety. 
One of his favourite reasons for desiring Germany to be indepen- 
dent of other countries in regard to raw materials is the growth 
of the trust system. ‘‘ Great changes had taken place in the 
supply of raw materials,” he said to the Chambers of Commerce 
at Berlin, January 11, 1907. ‘‘ While only twenty years ago 
there was but a petroleum trust, there were at the present time 
copper, coffee, and cotton combinations for the regulation of 
prices. Meanwhile Germany’s need for imports had in no wise 
decreased, and a counterpoise could only be found in the develop- 
ment of its colonial possessions.’’ Yet one of the most 
significant of recent economic developments in Germany is 
the growth of the monopolist syndicates. These syndicates will 
unquestionably be transplanted to the colonies as soon as it is 
worth while, and judging by their policy in the past it is ex- 
tremely unlikely that they will carry on enterprise there for 
disinterested love of the home manufacturers. 

If anything could justify the apprehension that Herr Dernburg 
may, after all, fail, it is the lavishness of his promises. He 
has held out brilliant hopes that will keep the colonial breast 
warm for some time, but these hopes are stimulating rather than 
supporting, and it is not impossible that in the absence of solid 
results within reasonable time a further reaction may set in. 
Herr Dernburg is a practical man, yet many of his calculations 
are obviously speculative. Directly a railway connects the 
coast of a colony with the interior he sees ‘‘not hundreds of 
thousands but millions” of natives at once civilised and trans- 
formed into productive members of the community, and promptly 
investing the proceeds of their labour in material commodities— 
all to Germany’s advantage. Next to the railway he puts his 
faith in ‘* Technik.’’ Machinery of all kinds is to be enlisted 
in the: service of cultivation—for irrigation, for ploughing and 
sowing and reaping, for motive power, for mining—irrespective — 
of cost and return, and applied science is to repeat in torrid 
zones the wondrous tale of her achievements in Europe and 
the United States. He is never tired of telling the story of 
‘“‘a box of dates that was lost several years ago on the way, and 


THE NEW COLONIAL ERA 385 


now offers to the sight of the wondering traveller date-palms 
10 feet high bearing fruit.” 

All classes of society are to have their place in realising his 
dream of a colonial empire resourceful and prosperous beyond 
all known experience. The writer is to describe its manifold 
life, the painter to limn its beauties and grandeurs. The 
missionary is to mould its religions, not destructively but 
adaptatively, for Herr Dernburg has all the tolerance of his 
race. The jurist is to create a harmonious amalgam of native 
custom and German law, under which everybody will be happy. 
The philologist is to enrich the native languages and reduce 
them to writing. Even a place is found for the statistician in 
the colonial Atlanta which is to be organised under the new 
Colonial Office. All this and more of the same sort will be 
found in the sanguine pages of Herr Dernburg’s colonial 
writings—called ‘‘ colonial legends’ by scoffing sceptics—and 
the reader wonders, as he passes from one brilliant picture of 
the future to another, whether Herr Dernburg has not forgotten 
his own maxim that ‘‘ the colonial question is in great part a 
money question,” and that the German Government has since 
1884 spent the greater part of a hundred million pounds upon, 
or owing to, the colonies, only to reap a prolific harvest of 
*‘ colonial pessimism.”’ 

Yet even he would seem at times to doubt whether the 
colours of his colonial pictures are not too vivid, for in the 
midst of a roseate account of a colonial cotton-growing project, 
which is to make Germany independent of the rest of the world, 
we find him saying :— 

‘‘T would like to interpose a remark here. In everything that 
I say I take no account of the time that will be necessary, nor 
do I allow for the fact that many failures may occur, so that it 
cannot to-day be said with certainty that we shall arrive at the 
condition of things described in either ten, fifteen, or twenty 
years. But that we shall be able to produce, if not the whole ot 
our present raw material, at least a considerable portion, first of 
all in cotton, I regard as probable.” 

It is certainly significant that Herr Dernburg has made on the 
whole the least favourable impression on the class of people with 
whom he in the past has been most in sympathy, and who might 
have been expected to rally most readily to his call. A certain 

2 


886 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


malice on the part of his old political and commercial friends— 
the malice of the man who has been left behind—may to some 
extent account for this, but it is likely that their incredulity is 
chiefly the result of well-justified caution. It is felt that what 
Herr Dernburg has done has simply been to ‘‘ water the capital”’ 
of the colonial concern and to put forward an alluring prospectus 
promising returns which are, at best, problematical. Thus, 
while the best known experts on German South-West Africa 
guardedly say that that colony can only be expected to sup- 
port 25,000 farmers, each needing to success an estate of 
25,000 acres, Herr Dernburg has no hesitation in multiplying 
the number by two. 

Dr. Karl Peters’ general opinion of Herr Dernburg’s valua- 
tion of the colonies is as follows: ‘‘I regard his valuation of 
the colonies as too high, perhaps because I have seen some 
parts of the Dark Continent with my own eyes. When Herr 
Dernburg says that we can conclude that every black creates one 
pfennig ($d.) of economic wealth per day, I reply that we can 
conclude no such thing—perhaps we may place the estimate at 
half a pfennig per year, perhaps not even that, though all will 
depend on the policy with the natives which Herr Dernburg 
pursues.” 

‘‘Herr Dernburg,”’ says one of his critics, “‘juggles with 
millions and balances himself with percentages.’”’ It is certain 
that few of his figures can stand careful scrutiny. Addressing 
the Berlin conference of Chambers of Commerce on January 11, 
1907, he claimed that the present exports of German industrial 
products to the colonies, in value £2,500,000, represent 
£2,000,000 of wages paid to the working classes, and assuming 
that the working classes bear £500,000 of the yearly subsidies 
to the colonies, he came to the conclusion that ‘‘ for every 
shilling (mark) of expenditure the working classes make a profit 
of four shillings.’ But if of an export value of £2,500,000 
£2,000,000 goes in wages, it follows that the remaining £500,000 
must cover not merely the cost of raw material, but salaries, 
rents, and other costs of production other than wages, the profits 
of the manufacturer, and a large sum for transport. It is far 
more likely that the actual wages of labour included in the 
value of exports about balance the cost of the colonies to the 
working classes in subsidies; but in any case the material 


THE NEW COLONIAL ERA 387 


advantage of the colonies at present to the working classes is 
very doubtful. 

Similarly Herr Dernburg has no hesitation in stating that the 
trade between the mother country and the colonies can be 
increased in five years from £3,000,000 to £10,000,000. It is 
no large increase, yet even this modest expectation is certainly 
not justified by past experience. Germany's combined import 
and export trade with the colonies during the past twenty years 
has only amounted to £15,900,000, or less than the value of the 
goods which Germany sells in one year to Switzerland, and a 
large part of the exports has consisted of material for public 
works and stores for the troops and officials. 

Without dwelling further on the contingent possibilities of 
Germany’s colonies, it is worth while inquiring into their 
present condition. This has been epigrammatically yet accu- 
rately described by a late governor in the words: ‘‘ The fertile 
colonies are unhealthy and the healthy colonies are unfertile.”’ 
The colonies may be divided into two classes, settlement 
colonies and plantation colonies, the first class comprising 
part of South-West Africa, the higher districts of East 
Africa, and some of the islands, having together an area 
twice that of the German Empire, while the latter class 
comprises the larger part of East Africa, Cameroon, Togo, and 
New Guinea, territories whose aggregate area is from two to 
three times that of Germany, though they are unfit for Kuropean 
colonisation. The entire area of Germany’s colonial empire 
(1906) is 2,658,449 square kilometres and its population is 
12,119,000, made up as follows :— 


Square 


Kilometres. Population. 
East Africa ... aa pes te Sa 995,000 7,000,000 
South-West Africa .. aye aka aR 835,100 200,000 
Cameroon ... aye aan at oe 495,600 3,500,000 
New Guinea... nae sii tig re 240,000 300,000 
Togo ... a the se a veh 87,200 1,000,000 
Caroline, Pelew and Marianne Islands ... 2,076 41,000 
Samoa om ti a eu vie 2,572 33,000 
Marshall Islands ... thy ee hae 400 15,000 


Kiauchau ... ae ete aes eee 501 30,000 





388 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


The latest Parliamentary report on the settled white popula- 
tion alone gives the following figures :-— 





| 1905. 1906 

East Africa ,.. ree sap Sen a 1,873 2,465 
Cameroon ,,., Le ee mh abs 826 896 
Togo .. i ay -~ za vis 224 243 
New Guineas. if eye he 466 529 
Kast Caroline ‘Islands rae the 92 17 
West Caroline Islands b “AM ase 47 73 
Marianne Islands ... ape Sai aie 22 23 
Marshall Islands ... FP iG ae 84 83 
Samoa res ik ey on ait 381* 454 
Kiauchau ... phe oes * Boe 4,728 1,225 

Totals ... ven ane 8,443 5,668 


On account of military operations no figures could be given for 
South-West Africa, where there were in 1906 6,872 whites, viz., 
4,842 men, 717 women, and 807 children, few of whom were 
settled in the colony. 

In German East Africa 1,499 of the 2,465 white residents in 
1906 were Germans, 441 were English (866 South Africans), 
and 148 Greeks; and the others were French, Italians, Austrians, 
Hungarians, Dutch, Turks, Montenegrins, and Swiss. The 
settlers and farmers had increased during the year from 180 to 
984, the merchants and dealers from 142 to 196, the artisans, 
workpeople, and miners from 77 to 181, the technical employees 
and tradespeople from 67 to 131. Of the more important towns 
Inbora had a population of 37,000, Dar-es-Salam one of 24,000, 
and Udjidji 14,000. 

Of the 896 whites in Cameroon in 1906 778 were Germans, 
45 English, 89 Americans, and 16 Swiss. The planters and 
settlers numbered 141 against 108 in 1905, the traders 283 
against 268, and the artisans 33 against 22. 

Of the 248 white inhabitants of Togo 64 were Govern- 
ment officials, 438 were missionaries and clergymen, 10 
settlers and planters, 11 members of technical professions 
and contractors, 20 artisans and workpeople, and 45 trades- 
people. 

* 1903 


THE NEW COLONIAL ERA 389 


In German New Guinea there were in 1906 529 whites, of 
whom 883 were in the Bismarck Archipelago, and the rest in 
Kaiser Wilhelm’s Land; 897 were Germans, 58 English, 23 
Dutch, and 15 Austrians. Of these whites 39 were Govern- 
ment officials, 1387 were missionaries, 50 were Sisters, 56 
settlers and planters, 17 technical employees and mechanics, 
4 artisans, 68 dealers, tradespeople, and innkeepers, and 51 
seamen. 

Of the whites in the East Carolines 88 were Germans; the 
whites in the Marianne Islands comprised 18 Germans and 
5 Spaniards, and there were 21 Japanese; and the 65 whites in 
the Marshall Islands were all Germans. 

Only one of the colonies, Togo, is as yet financially 
independent. The subsidies voted by the Empire in the 
financial year 1906-1907 amounted to £4,862,250, and were 
apportioned as follows:—East Africa £293,050, Cameroon 
£145,200, South-West Africa £3,253,550, New Guinea £57,700, 
Caroline, Pelew, Marianne, and Marshall Islands £17,000, 
Samoa £9,000, and Kiauchau £586,750. The greater part 
of the expenditure upon the South-West African colony is, of 
course, military expenditure, which will now be reduced every 
year. 

The principal source of the colonies’ own revenues * are the 
customs duties, the aggregate amount of which in 1906 was 
£411,050. In Kiauchau 22 per cent. and in East Africa 37 
per cent. of the revenue comes from this source (though in the 
latter case there are in addition export duties), in New Guinea 
68 per cent., and in Cameroon and Togo 80 per cent. The 
greater part of the customs revenue is not derived from indus- 
trial imports, however, but from alcoholic liquors, which have 
done infinite injury to all the native tribes and have literally 
wiped out some of them. By local taxes and dues the sum of 
£963,500 was raised in 1906. German East Africa has a house 
and hut tax, and of the proceeds 50 per cent. is applied to 
communal purposes; a trade tax, 80 per cent. of which goes to 
the communes, a death duty, and a salt tax. These taxes 
together yield 20 per cent. of the colony’s entire revenue. The 
revenue of Cameroon is partly derived from local taxes on spirits 
and licensed premises, a trade tax, a dog tax, a poll tax on the 

* Financial statement for the year 1906-1907. 


390 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 
natives, and in the Tschad Lake territory from tributary pay- 
ments; in Togo the taxes are spirit, dog and trade taxes; in 
South-West Africa there are spirit, trade, highway, and dog 
taxes; the Caroline Islands have a plantation tax and a meat 
tax; and Kiauchau has a land tax, and has even introduced a tax 
on unearned increment, called, as it is in Germany, the “‘increased 
value’’ tax. 

It is Herr Dernburg’s desire to see high taxation imposed 
on such colonial undertakings as hinder the development of 
a colony owing to their passivity—for example, companies 
which merely buy land in order to hold it for higher values in 
some indefinite future. Hence it is likely that the example of 
Kiauchau will be widely followed. In general it is part of the 
Colonial Secretary's policy to make the colonies more self- 
dependent, and as a means of so doing he intends to convert the 
variable annual subsidies from the Empire into a fixed amount. 
It may be noted that in the imposition of the hut and poll taxes 
Germany has experienced the same difficulties which other 
colonial Powers have had to face, and more than one rising has 
been the result in regions where the habit of idleness is traditional 
with the natives. 

The entire foreign trade of the colonies in 1905 was £9,655,000, 
made up of imports to the value of £7,027,400 and exports 
£2,627,600. ‘The imports of the colonies individually were as 
follows: East Africa £882,700, Cameroon £673,300, Togo 
£388,000, South-West Africa 4£1,181,600, New Guinea 
£146,800, Caroline and Marianne Islands £94,100, Marshall 
Islands £32,500, Samoa £169,800, and Kiauchau £3,458,800. 
The exports were-—East Africa £497,500, Cameroon £465,700, 
Togo £197,800, South-West Africa £10,800, New Guinea 
£66,700, Caroline and Marianne Islands £16,700, Marshali 
Islands £85,000, Samoa £101,400, and Kiauchau £1,285,800. 

Yet a large part of the imports shown above consisted 
of Government stores, railway material, and other goods which 
are not in the nature of exchange; the great bulk of the imports 
of South-West Africa and Kiauchau were of this character. 

‘The shares of Germany and Great Britain in the trade of 
the colonies are shown in the following table (Kiauchau and 
South-West Africa being omitted for the reason already 
given) :— 


THE NEW COLONIAL ERA 


Imports of the Colonies (1905). 


391 








From From 
Germany. Great Britain. 

£ £ 
POM ALTiCH ion wes, tliat Grad 390,050 17,650 
Cameroon ... Si : 1% ve 504,550 152,350 
Togo ... “ue obs ide s 3 298,050 29,800 
New Guinea... A “ps 54,450 5,300 
East Carolines See ed o 5,900 — 
West Carolines dike oe di 37,000 12,850 
Marianne Islands ... sue yh 200 — 
Marshall Islands ode we ive 13,900 3,000 
Samoa bes de des wes sad 41,350 1,000 





Exports of the Colonies (1905). 


To Germany. To Great Britain. 


£ £ 
East Africa ... aan 211,600 1,600 
Cameroon ... 3 pace es! iv 381,700 317,200 
Togo .. is wy and hin ans 118,500 — 
New Guinea 28,550 6,050 
East Carolines Ne wie as ss 4,650 _ 
West Carolines is ban “Ah one 50 — 
Marianne Islands ... dad “es Ae 350 _ 
Marshall Islands ... és aie das 10,700 — 
Samoa sis ae sha tvs 42,450 — 





The majority of the colonies must for a long time to come be 
regarded as plantation colonies, and on these lines they are being 
developed. Here, however, the white planter is faced with the 
difficulty of inducing the native to follow regular labour. The 
hut tax has been tried, and it has its friends as well as its 
opponents, but it has not solved the problem. The races of the 
several colonies are in this respect very diverse. In some 
districts they are easily trained to labour, in others idleness is a 
second nature, and in all the habit of steady employment is 
as yet undeveloped. 

The West African colonies, Togo and Cameroon, have at 
present a population inferior both as to labour and morals. 
The natives do not work hard, for which the climate and wet 
districts are in part responsible, though on the other hand the soil 
is very productive and intensive cultivation is not necessary. In 

Kast Africa there is a better labouring class, but in South-West 


392 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Africa the labour difficulty is for the present insuperable, since 
in decimating the Hereros the Germans destroyed the best 
material for developing the land. The last measure resorted to by 
General von Trotha for bringing the war to a close was undis- 
guised suppression. ‘‘ The Herero people,’ he wrote in his 
much-discussed proclamation of October 2, 1904, ‘‘ must now 
leave the land. If it refuses I shall compel jt with the gun. 
Within the German frontier every Herero, with or without 
weapon, with or without cattle, will be shot. Ishall take charge 
of no more women and children, but shall drive them back to 
their people or let them be shot at.’ * As a result of this policy 
the desert did for the women and children what the bullet did 
for the men, and the colony’s great need to-day is population. 
It is estimated that 10,000 natives, many being old people and 
the majority women and children, were driven into the Omaheke 
desert. The German missionary, Pastor Ivle, estimates the 
number of the Hereros who succumbed to hunger and thirst at 
14,000. Another missionary, Pastor A. Schowalter, writing in 
the Gartenlaube (1907), says: ‘‘The late war has reduced 
the Herero tribe by more than a quarter. After the battles on 
the Waterberg the rebels disappeared in the sand desert, and 
here the bones of 12,000 to 15,000 men who fell victims to 
hunger and thirst lie bleaching. Five thousand may have fallen 
in the battles, and thousands more have died in the concentration 
camps or on the railway works. Involuntarily one shudders 
when one hears the figures.” 

At the same time the land of the Hereros was appropriated by 
the Government and made fiscal domain, with a view to its 
colonisation by white settlers. + 

Without inquiring into the rights and wrongs of the policy 
pursued, which is now matter of history and cannot be undone, 


* The words were not intended to be taken literally, for an Order issued 
to the troops explained that ‘‘ by shooting at women and children is to be 
understood shooting over them, so as to compel them to run away.” The 
Order added: ‘‘I confidently assume that this Order will have the effect that no 
more men will be made prisoners, but that no cruelty will be shown to women, 
The latter will run away when shots are fired over them twice.” 

+ Dr. Rohrbach, the Imperial Commissioner for South-West Africa, wrote: 
‘« The land question is solved. The Hereros have lost their land, which is now 
fiscal land and is settled by whites. The cattle question is also solved. The 
whole of the live stock of the Hereros has been destroyed: there are hardly any 
cattle left. Yet that does not appear tragic when one remembers the wonderful 
fertility of the country.’”’ 


THE NEW COLONIAL ERA 393 


there can be no doubt that German South-West Africa cannot 
for many years recover from the harrying which it has under- 
gone. Speaking of this colony in the Budget Committee of the 
Reichstag on March 10, 1908, the Colonial Secretary said: 
*‘ Against imports of a million and a quarter there are no exports 
at all, and the imports consist almost exclusively of articles 
necessary for the support of the 10,000 Germans.” The 
Hereros were an intelligent, vigorous, and industrious tribe, alert, 
quick to learn and adaptable, and many were capable of employ- 
ment as overseers in the mines. They have, however, been 
reduced to a small band, and this remnant is falling a prey to the 
diseases which so often attack the black on his contact with the 
effeminating influences of civilisation. Forced labour on farms 
and railway works is for a time being tried in the case of the late 
captives, and, it is held, with success. A German in the colony 
writes: ‘The employment of the prisoners at such labour has 
proved very advantageous, and the experience hitherto gained 
has been entirely satisfactory. The majority evidently do not 
regard their work as an infliction, but prefer it to their past life 
in the field, since they have sufficient food and clothing, with 
just treatment. After six months they are paid wages in 
money.’ Governor von Lindequist has more lately issued a 
decree placing all Hereros, Hottentots, and Bastards, with 
the exception of the Bastards of Rehoboth, under forced labour, 
though in exceptional cases land is rented to them. It is a 
measure contrary to Western ideas, but it would appear to be 
regarded by public opinion at home as the only means of 
relieving the labour problem and so of giving the cvlony a 
chance of rising above its difficulties. 

On the whole, South-West Africa, owing to the mildness of 
its climate, and the large extent of its cultivable land and 
pasturage, is regarded as the most promising of the colonies, 
though the estimates of its value are very contradictory. While 
Dr. Karl Peters says that it ‘‘ does not equal the poorest part of 
British South Africa,’ Dr. Rohrbach maintains that it ‘‘ is 
much better and more fertile than most parts of Cape Colony.” 
It is, however, significant that though a large part of the 22,000 
volunteer soldiers who went out to take part in the expedition of 
the past few years did so with the fixed intention of remaining 
there as settlers, since they went with the Government’s offer of 


394 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


£300 wherewith to establish themselves as free farmers, only 
5 per cent. of them remained after having had full experience 
of the country and its possibilities. So, too, while General von 
Trotha says this colony is eminently suited to afforestation, 
his successor, General Leutwein, says that afforestation has 
absolutely no prospect. 

Herr Dernburg alone has no reservations, but sees in South- 
West Africa a potential Argentina or Canada. Already he 
anticipates the day when the tide of emigration will turn thither 
from the channels which in the past depleted the home country, 
without helping towards the consolidation of a new Germany 
abroad, and he points to the day when ‘‘ three million cattle 
and ten million sheep” will pasture upon its vast inland 
prairies. . 

No doubt the truth lies between the two extremes of undue 
depreciation and over-adulation. South-West Africa will not 
prove an industrial Eldorado nor a pastoral Eden, but it 
is a possible land of settlement in which many thousands of 
Europeans may in time live healthily and prosper moderately. 
Its greatest permanent disadvantage is the absence of a good 
harbour. Walfisch Bay, the natural outlet of the country, is in 
British possession, Luderitz Bay has an unfavourable Hinter- 
land, and Swakopmund, the only harbour left, is blocked by 
sands. The great value attached by the German Colonial Office 
to Walfisch Bay may, perhaps, be best judged by its apparent 
depreciation of it, yet as Walfisch Bay is not at present available 
—though an exchange for eligible territory in another direction 
would probably do Great Britain no harm and Germany much 
good—Swakopmund is to be opened up, and it is understood 
that a private company is prepared to build harbour works in return 
either for a Government guarantee or for valuable concessions. 

While it is certain that agriculture in various forms must 
always be the chief source of wealth in all the colonies, the cost 
of farming on a large scale—and no other form of agriculture is — 
conceivable—is prohibitory save for people with ample capital at 
command. In South-West Africa, for example, a farm capable — 
of giving any adequate return must be 25,000 acres in extent. — 
It is Dr. Rohrbach’s view that of the 823,000 square kilometres 
of land only 450,000 can be colonised, and that at most 25,000 — 
families will be able at any time to settle there. 


Sh _ “s 







“= _ = 
Eee 


THE NEW COLONIAL ERA 395 


How little prospect the colonies offer to small farmers is shown 
by the fact that a capital of from £500 to £2,500 is necessary 
in order to be admitted to any one of them as a settler. Even 
labourers are only allowed to land if they have deposited the 
amount of the return fare, so that they may be sent back if they 
fail to obtain work. The rule states: ‘‘ Any one who within 
a period of fourteen days fails to find work will be compulsorily 
deported home at his own expense.’’ The emigration department 
of the German Colonial Society recently replied to an inquiring 
would-be colonist: ‘‘ The German colonies are not suited to the 
reception of settlers with no means or even little. A large 
amount of capital and knowledge of tropical agriculture are both 
requisite. In South-West Africa, which is chiefly suited for 
cattle breeding, at least £1,000 or £1,250 has hitherto been 
regarded as necessary. The laying down of cocoa plantations in 
Samoa requires a capital of at least £2,500. Only in the 
German East African territories of West Usumbura and Langen- 
burg, and in the Marianne Islands is settlement possible with 
about £500, to which must be added the costs of transport and 
equipment. A warning must be given against emigration to 
any of the German colonies for the purpose of settlement 
without the requisite financial resources.” 

And yet Herr Dernburg has spoken of small holdings of 
twenty-five acres being created on a large scale in the temperate 
regions in the near future. 

A further serious obstacle to the development of the colonies 
is the need of roads and still more of railways. The bulk 
of the exports needs still to be carried from five to fifty days’ 
journey on the heads of negroes, and only the more valuable 
products—such as ivory, rubber, wax, &c.—can as yet be 
remuneratively exported from the interior on account of the 
cost of transport, yet it is there that the greatest wealth of 
the colonies lies. Herr Dernburg has said: ‘‘In order to 
transport the produce of 150 hectares (875 acres) of good 
cotton land in the interior of Togo to the coast, no less than 
1,000 men must be employed four weeks, so that a ton of 
produce costs £20 in transport alone by the time it reaches the 
port. When against that fact is placed the highly developed 
railway system of the Southern States of North America, one 
can no longer wonder that our large cotton territories have 


896 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


as yet done so little, and that it is necessary to help our small 
cotton export from Togo by a reduction of the steamer freights. 
The position in East Africa is far worse, for there the conveyance 
of a ton of produce from the interior to the coast requires at 
present a caravan of bearers and costs £125, while the same load 
could be brought to the coast by a railway in a short time and 
at a cost of only £2 5s.” . 

The Governor of German East Africa, Count Gotzen, recently 
wrote: ‘‘ We must take the land as it is and not as it might 
be, and only two possibilities are open to us. The one consists 
of the abandonment of progress of any kind, and the other is the 
opening up of the country by railways.’’ Some of the members 
of the party which accompanied Herr Dernburg on his visit 
to East Africa in 1907 returned with glowing accounts of 
this colony, its resources, its possibilities for settlement, and 
the prospects of successful cotton cultivation. The Usumbura 
and Wahehe countries alone were said to be capable of taking a 
million whites—more, be it said, than the entire white popula- 
tion of the century-old Cape Colony—but subject to one great 
reservation, the building of railways. Whatever may be thought 
of the prophetical part of their report, the necessity of railways 
is indisputable, and the need that exists in Hast Africa 
exists pro tanto in all Germany’s colonies. 

The need is to be met, and during the session of the Reichstag 
in 1908 proposals were introduced for the construction of no less 
than 900 miles of railway, to cost seven and half million pounds, 
spread over six or seven years. One line, 113 miles in length, is 
to run from Luderitz Bay to Kalkfontein; in Togo there will be 
a line of the same length from Lome to Atakpame ; 200 miles of 
lines are to be built in Cameroon, and 440 miles are to be built 
in East Africa. The money is to be raised by colonial loans, with 
Imperial guarantee. At present in the whole of the German 
colonies, with its area of over two and a half million square 
kilometres, and with twelve millions of inhabitants, there are 
only 1,883 kilometres (or 1,175 miles) of railway, distributed 
as follows (1906): East Africa 129 kilometres (225 kilometres 
in building or approved), Cameroon 50 kilometres (160 
kilometres in building or approved), Togo 167 kilometres, South 
West Africa 1,102 kilometres, and Kiauchau 485 kilometres, 
including the Shanktung line. By way of comparison it may be 


\ 
— an 


THE NEW COLONIAL ERA 397 


said that to every 100,000 inhabitants of the British African 
colonies there are 3°48 kilometres of railway in work, while the 
ratio in the French colonies is 1°84 kilometres, in the Congo State 
1°42 kilometres, and in the German colonies 1:21 kilometres. 

Taking a broad view of the question, no one can fairly doubt 
that in seeking to consolidate and develop its colonial dominions 
Germany is chiefly actuated by concern for the future of its 
growing population and its industries. A desire to imitate 
older Empires, ambition to have its own “‘place in the sun,”’ a 
determination to be in the full current of Weltpolituk—these 
considerations have also greatly influenced the Government and 
the colonial enthusiasts and they appeal strongly to the majority 
of the nation, yet the urgent need of new markets is the 
determining motive, and the motive is both justifiable and 
prudent. The question of emigration can hardly be said as yet 
to enter into the calculation, for the necessary conditions for 
emigration are wanting in nearly all the colonies. Though, 
indeed, the terms colonies and colonisation are generally applied 
to Germany’s dominions in Africa and the Pacific, it would be 
more accurate to speak of protectorates and trading settlements, 
for not one of these possessions is a colony in the strict meaning 
of the word, and, as has been shown, not one of them is 
populated to any extent by whites. 

Yet industrial interest and a justifiable ambition to rank, 
in whatever order, with the other world-empires would not 
of themselves afford the new colonial movement staying power. 
The most powerful impetus and incentive lies elsewhere. Tens of 
thousands of Germans who were left cold and indifferent to the 
colonial cry by the material argument have been roused by the 
sacrifice of life which has fallen to the last ten years. Such 
people, embracing broadly the entire military and official classes, 
the intellectuals, and the public-spirited higher middle class, 
whose interest in colonies is impersonal, recognise that the 
nation is now bound by every consideration of pride, dignity, 
and piety to retain possessions which have been bought with 
so heavy a price. ‘‘A country in which so many German sons 
have fallen and have | been ‘buried can no longer be a foreign 
land to us, but rather a piece of the home land, to care for which 
is our sacred duty.” The words of General Deiinling, applied 
specially to South-West Africa, express the sentiment of most 


398 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


patriotic Germans towards the colonial empire in general ; blood 
and iron have welded its parts together as they welded together 
the States at home, and it has become a point of national honour 
that acquisations which have been so painfully made shall never 
be lightly surrendered. 

Behind the colonial movement, as it has been reawakened and 
reinspired during the past few years, lies a virtually united 
nation. The Conservative parties were friendly to the move- 
ment from the first, and have never wavered in their attachment. 
Even the Centre, though it opposed the Government and brought 
about the dissolution of the Reichstag over a Colonial Money 
Vote in December, 1906, has in reality been one of the stoutest 
supporters of colonial enterprise from 1884 forward. To its 
credit it must also be recorded that it has refused to place 
exclusively in the forefront of colonial endeavours the purely 
commercial aspect of the question, and has insisted that 
colonisation must mean civilisation; hence its persistent plea 
for the humane treatment of the natives, for their protection 
against exploitation, whether by the white trader or tyrants 
amongst themselves, and for the encouragement of missionary 
enterprise ; hence, too, its prominent part in unearthing and 
probing to the bottom the ‘‘ colonial scandals’’ of recent years. 
An entire change has also come over the attitude of the Radicals, 
who are for the present almost more colonial than Herr Dern- 
burg himself, though in the newness of their enthusiasm 
probably lies the uncertainty of its permanence. 

More notable still is the fact that the Socialists are not as. a 
party united on the old policy of hostility to colonisation as a 
mere device of ‘‘ capitalism ”’ for exploiting the. helplessness of 
the noble savage, as it has exploited the helplessness of the 
Western working man—consolidated in millions in the invulner- 
able fortresses of Trade Unionism—for its own selfish advantage. 
Here, as in other directions, Socialism is being forced to retire 
from its negative position and to face the facts of history, not as 
yet fairly or courageously, it may be, yet ‘‘ with the blinkers 
off.” The debate on the subject which took place at the Con- 
gress at Stuttgart in 1907 showed the Socialists of Germany 
in a curious position of detachment from the views represented 
by France and other centres of irreconcilable and pedantic 
Internationalism. Herr Ledebour, the leader of the German 


>. 


THE NEW COLONIAL ERA 399 


extremists, did, indeed, add heat to that acrid discussion, but 
the light came from Drs. Bernstein and David, the spokesmen 
of the moderate, modern, rational tendency in that as in other 
departments of Socialist thought. ‘‘ All the earth had been 
taken for colonies,’’ said Dr. Bernstein, ‘‘and with the increasing 
power of the Socialist fractions in the different Parliaments 
Socialist responsibility increased. They must oppose the 
bourgeois Colonial policy, but they could not wash their hands 
like Pilate and say, ‘ We will have none of the colonies.’ To 
do that would be to deliver the natives over to their exploiters. 
Why, according to that theory, one might as well talk of hand- 
ing the United States back to the Redskins. Marx had said 
that the earth belonged to nobody. The peoples who occupied 
it had the duty of administering every territory for the good 
of humanity. However much damage the colonies might 
have caused, our economic life largely depended upon their 
products.”’ * 

The German delegates wisely declined to be dragged into an 
attitude of irreconcilable opposition to all colonisation, for it 


* Dr. Bernstein has dealt with the subject in his book, ‘*‘ Die Voraussetzungen 


des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie,’’ wherein he writes 


(p. 150) :— 
‘“‘ The future has its claims upon us. When we bear in mind the fact that 


Germany at present imports yearly very large quantities of colonial products, 


we are bound to admit that the time may come when it may be desirable that 


we should draw at least a part of these products from our own colonies. If it 


-is not wrong to consume the products of tropical plants it cannot be wrong to 
' cultivate these plants ourselves. ‘The question is not whether we should do this 
_ but how. Itis neither necessary that the occupation of tropical countries by 
' Buropeans shall be attended by injury to the natives, nor is this on the whole 
_ thé"Gasé.” Moreover, the savages can only be conceded a conditional right to the 


gerne Ont 


land occupied by them. A higher civilisation has here in the last resort a 
higher right. Not the conquest but the cultivation of the ground establishes an 


- historical legal title to its use.” 


So, too, the Socialist Herr Richard Calwer writes in Sozialistische Monats- 


‘hefte: ‘‘German Socialists should not ignore the fact that our capitalists and 


employers are compelled to colonise if Germany’s economic future is to be 
secured against competing countries abroad. There is no industrial country in 
the world which has so large an increase of population as Germany. We see 
how the enterprise of all other powerful industrial lands—Japan last of all— 
appropriates the globe, and Social Democrats cannot expect German enterprise 
to stay quietly at home and renounce the aims of world-policy. How is it 
expected that Socialism will be realised if this view prevails? Should not and 
must not capitalism first bring the world under subjection before a Socialistic 
organisation of economics will be possible? If this question be answered 
affirmatively, it follows that capital—including German capital as well—must 
go forth and subdue the world with the means and weapons which are at its 
disposal. There will still be ample room for criticism of capitalistic colonial 
policy.” 


400 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


would undoubtedly have placed them in antagonism to the mass 
of Social Democrats, who are as jealous of national interests and 
of the national honour as the most clamorous members of the 
‘‘ State-maintaining parties.” The position generally taken up 
by the leaders, in fact, is no longer hostility to colonies on 
principle, but hostility to any colonial policy which is not 
dictated by humane motives and informed by a genuinely 
civilising spirit. The adoption of this position brings them 
into line with parties whose principles and ideals on most 
domestic questions they do not share. 

There is one interesting question—constitutional as well as 
military—involved by Germany’s increasing colonial responsi- 
bilities which has never yet received the attention which it 
deserves, yet which one day will have to be faced seriously. A 
Colonial Army will sooner or later have to be formed, even 
though Germany’s possessions beyond the seas should receive 
no further additions. But for such an army the constitution 
makes no provision. The only political party which has hitherto 
recognised clearly the direction in which events are marching is 
that of Social Democracy, and its attitude of Obsta principiis 
is consistent enough. Meanwhile, the Government has dis- 
creetly given no countenance to the view that a Colonial Army 
is the logical outcome of colonial expansion, and quite recently 
Herr Dernburg said, referring especially to South-West Africa : 
‘The Government has no intention of creating a Colonial 
Army, but it is necessary to be prepared for all emergencies, 
and a peaceful occupation of the colonies is not possible, as may 
be concluded from the colonial wars of England and Holland.”’ 
The Government may have no immediate intention of proposing 
any modification of the constitution, but in politics events are 
more powerful than principles, and often deal in a summary 
fashion with pious promises, and the ultimate issue of events it 
is not difficult to foresee. At present the troops who do service 
in the colonies are enlisted voluntarily and paid. In the year 
1906 these troops numbered 4,579, 275 being stationed in East 
Africa, a garrison of 8,528 being stationed in Kiauchau, 609 
being stationed in South-West Africa (apart from the remnant 
of the expeditionary force sent out to quell the rebellion of the 
Hereros), 275 in East Africa, 149 in Cameroon, and 18 in the 
other colonies, while the coloured troops numbered 4,386 in 


THE NEW COLONIAL ERA 401 


the aggregate. Atthe present time the army of occupation in 
South-West Africa still numbers 4,000 men, and there is no 
immediate probability of any large reduction, at any rate until 
the semi-military police force has been trained. This is to 
number over 1,200, mostly mounted men, and the majority of 
these whites. 

It is not difficult to see what the attitude of this country 
should be towards the colonial endeavours of a friendly neigh- 
bouring Power. It has never been laid down in more statesman- 
like words than by Mr. Gladstone in 1885, when the first and 
only serious colonial misunderstandings between England and 
Germany occurred. And even if it be true that the Emperor 
has said, ‘‘ Wherever in the world I can drive a nail on which to 
hang my shield I will drive it,’ Germany has only been doing 
during the last twenty years what other colonial Powers had done 
a century before it, insomuch that all the best places for nails 
and shields were long ago appropriated. It is, of course, possible 
to detect in the frenzied utterances of Pan-Germans and others 
motives for colonial enterprise which are far from friendly to this 
country, yet until these men are taken seriously in Germany it 
would seem superfluous to attach importance to their utterances 
abroad. Those who are not influenced by the argument of 
amity may on other grounds reconcile to their consciences and 
their interest an attitude of at least benevolent neutrality. 
They may recall how in 1881, when France avowed designs 
against Morocco, Prince Bismarck quietly looked on, only 
remarking to those who wondered at his serenity that the 
more France occupied itself with colonisation the better it would 
be for Germany. 


27 


CHAPTER XX 
THE PRICE OF EMPIRE 


The present financial position of the Empire—Parties call for an Imperialistic 
policy, but are unwilling to pay the cost—Increase of the Empire’s 
expenditure during recent years—The extension of the army and navy 
the principal cause—Debts of the Empire and the States—Much of the 
indebtedness of the States is nominal—Prussia’s national balance-sheet 
—The Empire’s need of more revenue—Direct versus indirect taxation— 
Present sources of Imperial revenue—Direct taxes not opposed to the 
constitution—Objections to them stated—Additional revenue will prob- 
ably be derived from tobacco, beer, and spirit—The idea of a State 
spirit monopoly—Income-tax and its incidence in the principal German 
States—The revenue derived from remunerative State enterprises. 


ERMAN parties, with the single exception of the extreme 
(5 democrats, find themselves at present in a difficult and 
contradictory position ; they are united in calling for an Imperial- 
istic policy, yet they are also unanimous in complaining of the 
cost of this policy, and they disagree as to the sources from 
which the increased taxation, which every one recognises to be 
inevitable, shall come. The ever-increasing weight of military 
taxation has been borne with patience, but though a spirited 
foreign policy is undoubtedly popular, much misgiving prevails 
as to the still heavier expenditure to which ‘‘ Marinismus,” to 
use the catchword of the popular parties, will eventually commit 
the Empire. Nor is the taxpaying citizen alone in grumbling; 
some of the federal States are likewise alarmed by the growth of 
the matricular contributions by which they are pledged to make 
good the Empire’s deficits. q 

Already the Empire’s expenditure has advanced fo a sum 
never contemplated in the quieter days of the old régime, and its 


debt has rapidly expanded from a few modest millions of marks — 
402 | 







THE PRICE OF EMPIRE 403 


to several milliards. It is difficult to believe nowadays that 
during the first few years of the Empire’s career a revenue of about 
seventeen and a half million pounds was on an average sufficient 
to meet its needs. Of this revenue from a quarter to a third was 
derived from customs duties and the tobacco duty; one-half 
from excise duties on sugar, salt, beer, and spirit, from stamps, 
and from profits from the Imperial post and railway services ; 
while from two and a half to three and a half millions came from 
the federated States in the form of matricular contributions. 
By the year 1888 the entire Imperial expenditure had reached 
about £37,000,000, in 1898 it was £69,000,000, and the budget 
of the present year contemplates an expenditure of £121,600,000, 
of which £16,280,000 is described as non-recurring, though as 
the greater part of this amount relates to the army, navy, and 
the colonies, its equivalent in other forms will not improbably 
appear in later budgets. While during the past twenty years 
the population of the Empire has increased by 30 per cent., its 
expenditure has increased by 230 per cent. 

Much of this large increase is due to normal causes which 
operate in all countries equally, such as expenditure on the 
various branches of the Civil Service, but the lion’s share falls to 
the army and navy, and it is significant that the great expansion 
of expenditure on this head has taken place since Germany 
elected to become a colonial Power. In 1880, before that step 
was taken, the expenditure on the army and navy together was 
only £23,000,000; ten years later it was still below £35,000,000; 
but the army and navy estimates for 1908 provided for an 
expenditure of £51,000,000, without counting the pension fund. 
The expenditure on the navy has shown the largest relative 
increase during recent years. In 1888 the navy cost just two 
and a half million pounds, and ten years later the cost was six 
and a half millions. In 1900 the navy was supposed to have 
been placed upon its final basis, and the estimates still fell below 
ten million pounds. The carrying out of the 1900 programme of 
construction, together with later modifications, brought the naval 
budget to twelve million pounds in 1906, to over thirteen and a 
half millions in 1907, and to over sixteen and a half millions in 
1908 ; and from now and until 1917 the average annual expendi- 
ture on the navy, even on present estimates, will exceed twenty 
millions, of which three and a half millions are regularly to be 


404 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


raised by loan. The colonies are directly as well as indirectly 
responsible for heavy expenditure. Twenty-five years ago the 
colonies did not appear in the budget at all. As late as 1898 
they only cost the Empire six hundred thousand pounds; during 
the last five years the average cost of the colonies, in administra- 
tion, subsidies, and military expeditions, has been about two and 
a half millions, and the budget for 1908 provides for nearly three 
and a quarter millions, of which South-West Africa absorbs 
£1,7386,000, New Guinea £559,000, Kiauchau £524,000, East 
Africa £231,100, Cameroon £186,000, and the South Sea Island 
colonies £21,000. 

Imperial expenditure also promises to increase in the 
immediate future at an even more rapid rate than hitherto. The 
budget for 1908 showed a deficit of four million pounds, and the 
deficits anticipated on the present basis of taxation during 
the next five years are estimated at over forty-two million 
pounds, for the navy will require £23,500,000 more, the army 
£6,250,000, £7,850,000 will be needed for the extension of the 
North-Baltic Sea Canal, £2,800,000 for Imperial railways, 
£1,100,000 for dwellings for Civil Service employees; 
while in addition the Empire is to guarantee £7,750,000 for 
colonial railways. A considerable part of the foregoing expendi- 
ture will properly be placed to capital account, and will be met by 
loans, though little of it can be regarded as remunerative in the 
commercial sense. Even allowing for loans, however, the Empire 
needs an additional annual revenue of at least eight million 
pounds. | 

The financial crisis, such as it is, has only been staved off so 
long by systematically transferring large items of expenditure 
from the ordinary to the extraordinary estimates and covering 
them by loans. Even four years ago Baron von Stengel, then 
Secretary to the Treasury, told the Reichstag (December 4, 
1904): ‘‘I cannot conceal from you that the prospect is a very 
dismal one, and I have no hesitation in declaring quite frankly 
that it is impossible to go on in the way we are doing.”’ Thirty- 
two years ago the Empire had no debt at all. It was in 1876- 
1877 that it began to borrow, yet by 1885, on the eve of the 
colonial era, the debt was only twenty and a half million 
pounds; ten years later it was one hundred and four millions ; 
and to-day it is over two hundred millions, so that a sum 


THE PRICE OF EMPIRE 405 ~ 


_ exceeding half the entire principal of the Imperial debt of twenty- 
Six years ago is now paid in interest. The Minister of Finance, 
Baron von Rheinbaben, said recently: ‘‘ It is, unfortunately, the 
fact that in debt-making we excel all other countries, and 
especially France and England, In a period in which France 
has made no addition to its National Debt, our Imperial Debt 
has increased nearly tenfold. Unquestionably this fact does not 
serve to increase the political and economic prestige of Germany 
abroad.”” The indebtedness of the Empire is now £38 4s. per 
head. 

In addition, the debts of the individual States have to be taken 
into account. The aggregate amount of the funded debts of 
the federal States in April, 1906, was £609,500,000, Prussia 
having a debt of £360,921,000, Bavaria a debt of £83,556,000, 
Saxony one of £46,072,000, Wurtemberg one of £26,991,000, 
Baden one of £21,879,000, and Hesse one of £17,956,000. 

During the years 1901-1906 the debt of Prussia increased by 
£38,500,000, or 11°7 per cent., that of Bavaria by £17,200,000, 
or 25°2 per cent., that of Saxony by £5,500,000, or 13°4 per 
cent., that of Wurtemberg by £2,800,000, or 11°4 per cent., that 
of Baden by £5,600,000, or 33°8 per cent., and that of Hesse by 
£4,100,000, or 28°9 per cent. Counting Imperial and State 
debts together Prussia has an indebtedness of £12 17s. 7d. per 
head, Bavaria one of £16 Os. 2d., and Hesse one of £18 1s. 

Here, however, it is necessary to remember that a large part 
of the indebtedness of the individual States is nominal, inasmuch 
as it has been contracted on behalf of revenue-yielding enter- 
prises, so that behind it are commercial assets, which in some 
cases far exceed in value the loans still standing against them. 
Thus the railways of the States were in 1905 valued at 
£680,000,000, and the debt on them amounted to £357,000,000. 
The State mines of various kinds, the 1,769,000 acres of State 
lands, and the 12,879,000 acres of State forests also represent 
an enormous though uncalculated value. Of the debts of the 
Empire and the States together nearly one-half consists of 
railway loans, which are being reduced every year by assign- 
ments from profits. 

The case of Prussia is particularly instructive. According 
to the last budget, the entire interest on the national debt, 
including railway loans, was #£16,400,000, and of this 


406 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


£14,600,000 was’ borne by the railways, leaving only 
£1,800,000 as a charge on the general revenue. Of the entire 
State debt of £400,000,000, £356,000,000, or 89 per cent., was 
on account of remunerative undertakings, and £44,000,000, or 
11 per cent., on account of unproductive expenditure. The 
actual debt, in the strictly commercial sense, is only this 
£44,000,000. But if against this sum were placed the capital 
value at 4 per cent. of the profits from the State’s productive 
undertakings, not only would the debt disappear, but the State 
would be shown to have a balance of assets over liabilities of 
£887,000,000. In reality, however, Prussia is better off than 
its budget account would lead one to suppose, for a large part 
of the railway loans has been paid off and a great amount of 
capital expenditure has been, and still is, charged to revenue. The 
Prussian Minister of Finance, Baron von Rheinbaben, a short 
time ago prepared a still more favourable balance-sheet. He 
placed the capital value of the State railways at £975,000,000, 
that of the fiscal forests and lands at £390,000,000, and that 
of the fiscal mines, smelting works, and other undertakings at 
£35,000,000, making a total of £1,400,000,000. Against these 
assets he showed liabilities of £505,000,000, in its national 
debt and its share in the debt of the Empire, ei a balance 
of £895,000,000. 

In spite of the largeness of the Imperial Debt as compared 
with twenty years ago, however, it would be incorrect to speak 
of the Empire’s financial position as disastrous. The simple 
fact is that the nation has committed itself to foreign under- 
takings and responsibilities without counting the cost; these 
enterprises are taxing its resources far beyond the measure to 
which it had become accustomed, and the outcry which has arisen 
is for the most part the outcry of the unthinking crowd which 
always refuses to connect causes with effects or effects with 
causes. ‘‘ The disorder of the Empire’s finances is the real 
German question of to-day,’’ writes in a recently published book 
a German publicist who, after maligning first England and 
then Russia, has turned his hand against his own country. 
*‘Soon it will be so spoken of not only at home but abroad. 
It is not Social Democracy or Ultramontanism that threatens 
the Empire, but the unhappy financial development which is the 
result of an accumulation of political and personal guilt since 


THE PRICE OF EMPIRE 407 


the Imperial proclamation at Versailles. The growth of the 
Imperial Debt and the decline of the Imperial credit decrease 
the Empire’s financial readiness for war. The increasing con- 
trast between the nation’s growing riches and the growing 
poverty of the Imperial Treasury has illumined as by a search- 
light the confusion of our political and financial conditions. By 
its long-standing resistance to the welfare of the Empire particu- 
larism has made itself responsible for the present financial distress, 
but it has undermined its own right of existence rather than that 
of the Empire. Particularism has played its last card. The way 
is open for a great expansion of the Reichstag’s power. The 
expense of the multiplicity of States must be diminished by a 
good milliard marks a year.” These words are a fair sample of 
the irrational polemic which has arisen over the question of 
Imperial finance in Germany, and as is usually the case truth 
will be sought vainly in violent dogmatism of the kind. The 
Empire is in no financial danger, and far from particularism—by 
which the North German invariably means the assumed narrow 
outlook of the Southern States—having been the cause of its 
straitened resources, the blame, if any be due at all, must be laid 
at the doors of the powerful North German parties. 

As to the financial aspect of the question, it would be absurd 
to conclude from the occurrence of a succession of deficits, which 
might have been checked long ago had difficulties been fairly 
and boldly faced, that the Empire’s credit is seriously shaken. 
Such a thing is impossible, for the sufficient reason that the 
federal States are sureties for its stability and solvency, and 
while the States have large liabilities they have, as we have 
seen, still larger assets. The difficulties which beset the 
Empire have their origin mainly in the fact that the Empire 
has never been placed in possession of more than a bare sub- 
sistence. Its revenues have, it is true, been enlarged from 
time to time, yet always with a view to meeting the needs 
of the moment; the States have always restricted its resources 
with a jealous and even a niggardly hand, from a not un- 
reasonable fear that an opulent Empire might develop im- 
providence and get beyond the control of its responsible 
guardians. 

The Federal Government’s independent resources are limited 
to the proceeds of the Imperial railways, posts and telegraphs, 


408 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


customs and excise duties, stamp duties, a portion of the pro- 
ceeds of an inheritance duty, and some minor imposts. Even 
the receipts from customs duties and excise beyond a fixed sum 
are appropriated by the States in proportion to population, with 
the result that a call has to be made on the Treasuries of the 
various States, to which the Empire goes, as it were, cap in 
hand, to beg for the needful funds. Owing to a series of 
deficits which occurred in the years 1900-1903 article 70 of the 
constitution, which deals with matricular contributions, was 
amended in 1904 so as to read :— 

‘* The revenue common to all the States of the Empire which is 
derived from the customs, from Imperial taxes, from the Imperial 
railways, posts and telegraphs, and from Imperial administrative 
receipts shall, in the first place, serve to meet all common 
(Imperial) expenditure. In so far as that expenditure is not 
covered by the revenue derived from these sources it shall be met 
by contributions from the several States in proportion to popu- 
lation, such contributions being called for by the Imperial 
Chancellor up to the amount fixed by the Imperial Budget. In 
case the assignments [by the Empire to the States from the pro- 
ceeds of the customs and excise duties] fall short of these 
contributions the difference shall be refunded to the federal 
States at the end of the financial year to the amount up to which 
the remaining ordinary revenue of the Empire exceeds its 
requirements. Any surplus from previous years shall, unless 
the Budget Law otherwise provides, be employed to meet 
common extraordinary expenditure.’’* 

From the beginning customs duties have been the mainstay of 
Imperial revenue, and to this fact, equally with the protective 
purpose which is behind the duties, must be attributed their 
repeated increase, until the revenue now derived from customs is 
six times that of thirty-six years ago. In their origin, however, 
these duties were not adopted as part of a system of protection ; 
they were chosen by Prince Bismarck as the only alternative 

* Under the Finance Act of June 3, 1906, the matricular contributions were 
divided into three kinds—(1) those balanced by the Empire’s revenues set 
apart for the purpose from the customs and excise duties, being contribu- 
tions paid by the States and refunded in full; (2) contributions to a maximum 
of £1,174,800 not covered by such assignments and payable to the Empire at 
once on need; and (3) deferred uneovered contributions, exceeding the last- 


named sum, which are only payable by the States in the third year if then 
found necessary on the closing of the accounts. 


THE PRICE OF EMPIRE 409 


then possible to a system of complete federal maintenance or to 
direct taxation, both of which he refused to accept.* 

It was, in fact, one of Prince Bismarck’s dicta that ‘*Who- 
ever wants to make the electors discontented with the Govern- 
ment will seek to maintain the direct taxes; whoever wishes to 
see the population contented will favour indirect taxes.”” When 
the first North German Confederation tariff of October 1, 1870, 
came into force the burden imposed on the consumers was 
slight, for the need of- funds was small and the tariff gene- 
rally followed Free Trade principles. The year after the 
Empire was established on its present basis (1872), the 
total yield of the customs duties was less than five million 
pounds, equal to 2s. 4d. per head of the population. The 
revenue grew with increasing population and consumption, but it 
was not until 1879 that the tariff, by being revised on strictly pro- 
tective principles for the benefit of agriculture and in a secondary 
degree of industry, became the settled and recognised founda- 
tion of Imperial finance. In 1880 the customs duties yielded 
£8,420,000, or 8s. 9d. per head of the population ; and from that 
year there was a large increase annually, until £11,000,000, or 
4s. 11d. per head, was reached in 1885, £14,400,000, or 6s. per 
head, in 1888, and £19,000,000, or 7s. 8d. per head, in 1891. 
Then came the conclusion of the Caprivi commercial treaties, the 
effect of which was to curtail the revenue from this source for 
several years. The old level was exceeded for the first time in 
1896, when the duties yielded £21,680,000, or 8s. 3d. per head, 
and the maximum yield occurred in 1905, viz., £31,290,000, or 
10s. 4d. per head, owing to a largely increased import of corn, 
tobacco, and other articles in anticipation of the coming into 
operation in March of the following year of the Bulow tariff of 
1902. In 1906 the revenue from the duties fell to £27,850,000, 
or 9s. 1d. per head. 

On the whole the receipts from these duties ire yielded from 
a third to a half of the Empire’s entire revenue, though counting 
the assignments made to the States the proportion has occa- 
sionally exceeded one-half. Naturally the bulk of the customs 
revenue is derived from articles of food and consumption. Of 


* An account of the origin of the customs duties and of Prince Bismarck’s 
theories of taxation appears in ‘‘ Protection in Germany: a History of German 
Fiscal Legislation during the nineteenth century,’”’ by William Harbutt Dawson 
pein P. 8. King and Son), 


410 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


667,760,000 marks gross yielded by the customs duties in 
1906 184,063,000 marks, or 20 per cent., came from manu- 
factured goods, 35,910,000 marks, or 5°4 per cent., from raw 
materials used for industrial purposes, and 497,787,000 marks, 
or 74°6 per cent., from foodstuffs and articles of consumption of 
all kinds (including tobacco) and cattle. The manufactured 
articles which yield the largest revenue are cotton and woollen 
goods (including yarns), silk and linen goods, iron and iron ware 
(including machinery), leather and leather goods, earthenware, 
and glass. 

The excise duties, the Empire’s second main source of revenue, 
have likewise been increased from time to time. In 1872 these 
duties yielded a little more than three and a quarter million 
pounds; successive increases, and in a less degree growth of 
population and consumption, have brought the yield to about 
twenty millions. 

The following was the revenue from these two sources at 
different dates between 1872 and 1906 :— 


Revenue in Millions of Marks. 


1872, 1882. 1892. 1902. 1906. 
Customs duties. 971 191°5 360°0 497°6 557°0 
Sugar duty 4:1 46°1 65°5 98°2 138°4 
Salt duty 24°6 37°8 42°6 49°4 55°8 
Spirit duty ... 24°3 38°5 115°6 123°3 121°3 
Beer duty 12°7 16:6 25:0 29°1 46°1 
Tobacco duty .. 1'3 11°3 11:3 12°0 16°6 
Total... 1641 341°8 620°0 809'6 935°2 

Per head of the 

population ... 4s, 7s. 6d. 12s. 4d. | 13s.10d. | 15s. 3d. 


The other principal sources of Imperial revenue to-day are 
the stamp duties, which were estimated to yield in 1908 over 
six million pounds, the inheritance duty, estimated to yield two 
a pounds, and the Empire’s remunerative undertakings, 

, the railways in Alsace and Lorraine, the posts and tele- 
ant the Imperial Printing Works, and the Mint, vise 
together five and a half million pounds, 


THE PRICE OF EMPIRE 411 


The fact which stands out in the Empire’s financial position 
is the utter inadequacy of peddling measures to alleviate 
matters. An attempt was made eight years ago to place finance 
on a sound footing, and for the expenditure of that day the new 
resources opened up seemed sufficient. A further increase of 
the navy estimates made additional revenue necessary in 1906, 
and as a result of the revision of the taxes in that year the beer 
duty was increased, a duty on cigarettes and an Imperial legacy 
duty were introduced, besides several other petty duties like 
those on railway tickets and company directors’ fees, but the 
proceeds of these new or increased taxes have entirely disap- 
pointed hopes. Some have yielded more than was expected, 
but others far less, so that the total revenue from these new 
sources has fallen half a million pounds below the estimate. 
Whatever may now be done, it is certain that the petty ex- 
pedients that were left over at the last revision of the taxes— 
motor-car and picture-postcard taxes, export duties on coal, rubber, 
and rags, and so forth—will no longer avail, and that financial 
reform on heroic and fundamental principles will be necessary. 

This unpleasant prospect has renewed, in an aggravated form, 
the controversy over indirect and direct taxation, a controversy 
as old as the Empire. In the party which favours the further 
development of indirect taxes, including the increase both of the 
customs and excise duties, are found all the Conservatives, most 
of the Ultramontanes, and many of the National Liberals; to 
the other party belong all the Radicals and Social Democrats, 
the National Liberals of moderately Protectionist complexion, 
and the more democratic social reformers of the Centre party. 
The direct-tax party wishes to see the protective duties give 
place gradually to taxes which will apportion the burden of 
public expenditure more equally. It especially calls for an 
Imperial income-tax, a tax on capital, and the further develop- 
ment of the death duties; and many people would not be averse 
from a military-service tax, falling for a period of years, as in 
France, Austria, Switzerland, and some other countries, upon 
able-bodied citizens who are not called up for training owing to 
the excess of efficient men beyond the requirements of the 
annual peace strength. As to the last, the idea is that young 
men who are not called to the colours shall up to their thirty- 
second year pay a special poll-tax of 4s. yearly as well as an 


412 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


income-tax rising, from 10s. on an income of £50, by gradual 
increments to 8 per cent.; the parents being surety for the 
payment of the tax, yet persons suffering from physical or 
mental defects being exempted. The chief objections to such a 
tax are that it would degrade the obligation to defend the 
national hearth and altar to a formal duty compoundable 
by a money payment, that it would discourage the senti- 
ment of patriotism, and that it would in practice be found 
to open the door to the worst sort of favouritism. Such a tax 
was seriously proposed in the form of a Bill many years ago, but 
it was decisively rejected, and there is no reason to expect that 
it would meet a different fate to-day. The Socialists in par- 
ticular, ever prolific in projects of taxation, ask that the 
Empire’s future needs shall be met by a professional income 
tax beginning with incomes of £300 and increasing according to 
requirements from year to year, by a special tax on funded 
income, and by heavier legacy duties. 

In this struggle between the indirect and direct taxation 
parties the Government on the whole, in spite of its resort two 
years ago to an inheritance duty, which it shares with the federal 
States, leans strongly to the side of the Conservatives, and it 
does so on the plea that direct taxes are ‘‘ contrary to the 
constitution.’””’ The Secretary to the Treasury recently stated 
the position of the Executive as follows :— 

‘“‘ The federal Governments will not propose a direct Imperial 
tax, and they believe that in this they are acting according to 
the sentiment of the Reichstag. The Socialists call for the 
introduction of direct Imperial taxes with great urgency, and 
their programme sets forth that in this way it will be possible to 
arrive most quickly and most surely at the goal of a uniform 
State. But what inroads in the domain of legislation, ad- 
ministration, and control, now exercised by the individual States, 
would be necessary on the part of the Empire in order to effect 
a just distribution of the direct taxes between the various States! 
The appeal to the Imperial legacy duties is inapplicable, for a 
man dies but once, and direct taxes are levied every year. It is 
no accident that in the United States and Switzerland no one ever 
thinks of introducing direct federal taxes ; in those older States 
it was recognised long ago that the direct taxes must be left to 
the individual States if the federal basis of the constitution of 


THE PRICE OF EMPIRE 413 


those States was to be preserved intact. The German federal 
Governments take the same view; they will resist on principle 
any attempts in a different direction. The reform of the 
Imperial finances can only be effected in the domain of the 
indirect taxes assigned to the Empire by the constitution.” 

Baron yon Rheinbaben still later endorsed this statement, 
affirming, ‘‘ The Federal Council will under no circumstances 
propose the introduction of direct Imperial taxes. With direct 
Imperial taxes the federal constitution of the Empire would fall 
to the ground.”’ 

Now there may be valid objections to some of the direct taxes 
proposed, but they are certainly not opposed either to the letter 
or the spirit of the constitution as originally framed. In its first 
form article 70 ran: ‘‘ Towards defraying all common expendi- 
ture shall be used—(1) any surplus of the preceding year and 
the revenue derived from the customs duties, the common excise 
duties, and the postal and telegraph system ; and (2) in so far as 
the expenditure is not covered by these revenues it shall be made 
up, so long as Imperial taxes are not introduced, by contributions 
of the Federal States according to population, which contributions 
shall be assigned by the Imperial Chancellor up to the amount 
required by the Budget.’’ The words italicised, ‘‘so long as 
Imperial taxes are not introduced,’’ show clearly that, while the 
authors of the constitution intended that the Empire should have 
a lien upon the customs and excise duties, they regarded the 
contributions of the States as temporary, and expected 
that the Empire would eventually have direct taxes of its 
own, like the individual States. It is true that in a revision 
of the clause this reservation was omitted several years ago, yet 
even now there is no constitutional objection to direct taxes. 
Prince Bismarck once said to the Reichstag: ‘‘ The Imperial 
constitution presupposes that the condition of contributions by 
the separate States shall be a transitional one, lasting only until 
Imperial taxes shall have been introduced,” though at the same 
time he preferred indirect taxes to direct on the ground that the 
former are paid in instalments, the amount of which is hardly 
calculable at any given time. In general, as we have seen, this 
_ principle has also been followed by successive Governments to 
the present day—indirect taxes for the Empire, supplemented by 


- contributions from direct taxes raised in the several States. 


414 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


The strongest and only conclusive argument against an Imperial 
income tax, which is what the popular parties specially desire, 
is the argument of expediency. Already German citizens pay 
two income taxes, one to the State to which they belong and a 
super-tax for local purposes, based upon the State assessment, to 
the commune in which they are resident, this super-tax being in 
most States the foundation of local finance. The addition of a 
third tax upon income would in many cases entail intolerable 
hardship, especially when, as happens in some Prussian towns, 
the existing State and municipal income taxes together already 
amount to as much as 10 per cent. of middle-class incomes. An 
Imperial tax of this kind would also be a serious interference with 
a source of revenue which the States have hitherto specially 
reserved for their own purposes, and from which, indeed, most of 
them derive the greater part of their resources. It is certain 
that every other practicable measure of taxation will be tried 
before the Reichstag will consent to a general tax on income, 
though no one dare predict that it will not eventually be necessary. 
Any serious diminution of the revenue from customs and duties, 
by the lightening of the tariff in a free trade sense, might make 
such a tax at once inevitable. 

It will be seen, therefore, that beyond the motive of protection 
for agriculture and industry, long-standing attachment to the 
existing system of indirect taxation is a powerful argument in 
favour of the retention of the tariff on such a basis as will 
afford the Empire the largest possible revenue. 

The easiest solution of the fiscal difficulty, and the one which 
will in all probability be adopted, is a further increase of the 
taxes on tobacco, beer, and spirits—taxes which have more than 
once in the past saved the financial situation. It cannot be 
said that these taxes are excessive at present, and least of all 
is this the case with the tax on tobacco. Before 1879 the 
tobacco excise tax took the form of a tax on the area cultivated, 
but in that year a tax was imposed on the raw produce itself, — 
this tax being first fixed at 10 marks per cwt. (a rate 
increased in 1881 to 15 marks and in 1882 to 224 
marks), and on substitutes at 3824 marks; while the 
customs duty was 424 marks per cwt. on tobacco leaf, 
185 marks on cigarettes, and 90 marks on: other kinds 
of tobacco. On three occasions (1882, 1894, and 1895) the 


THE PRICE OF EMPIRE 9 415 


Government has endeavoured to establish a State monopoly 
in the manufacture of tobacco, as in the case of France, 
Austria, and other countries, but it has met with little support, 
and until 1906 its repeated proposals to tax manufactured tobacco 
likewise failed. Even now the only tax on the finished product 
is that which applies to cigarettes and cigarette tobacco, the 
revenue from which in 1907 was estimated at a little over half 
a million pounds. In general, however, the duties and taxes 
on tobacco continue much as they were twenty-five years ago, 
with the result that a source of revenue, which in the United 
Kingdom yields over thirteen million pounds, yields in Germany, 
with its far larger population, only some five million pounds. 
There is no uniformity in the excise duties on beer brewing, 
for the South German States have retained their old privileges, 
to the extent that they impose their own duties and pay the 
Empire a limited proportion of the proceeds. The result of 
this divided system is great inequality, for while Baden and 
Wurtemberg levy beer taxes to the extent of 4s. per head of 
the population and Bavaria 5s. 6d., the taxation in North 
Germany is only 104d. per head, and the average for the 
whole Empire is only 1s. 7d. Until the North German 
brewing tax was increased in 1906 there had been no change 
in this tax for over eighty years. In English ears it will sound 
strange that no German party waxes so indignant when there 
is talk of the higher taxation of beer than the Radicals, most 
of whom would as soon vote away the constitution as surrender 
their immemorial right to drink deeply, because cheaply, of this 
popular beverage. The entire yield for the whole Empire of 
the customs and excise duties on beer was in 1905 four and 
three-quarter million pounds. If the excise tax were raised 
throughout the Empire to the Bavarian level an increased 
revenue of at least ten million pounds would, from this source 
alone, be available for division between the Empire and the 
States outside what is known as the ‘“‘ brewing tax area.” 
Spirits are already taxed much more heavily than beer, and 
by several methods, chiefly by an excise duty, a distilling tax, 
and a mash-tub tax, the last falling on all spirit produced in 
agricultural distilleries using corn and potatoes. The proceeds 
of these duties range from five to six million pounds per annum, 
and it is generally agreed that a good deal more might be 


416 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


derived from this source with advantage to the consumers and 
the community. It is probable, however, that the Government 
will eventually press for a State monopoly, seeing that public 
opinion more and more favours this method of regulating the 
sale of spirit for the common advantage. The idea is that 
the State shall take over, not the distilleries, but the spirit 
they produce, determining the output each year, buying it 
at a price that will allow a proper profit to the producers, 
and fixing the price at which it shall be sold to the public 
in accordance with the needs of finance and the competi- 
tion of foreign distillers. It cannot be said that the plan 
proposed promises that economy of production which is one of — 
the principal justifications of the industrial syndicate; on the 
contrary, it is probable that the effect of the State purchase of 
spirit on the loose principle of guaranteeing the distillers a profit 
under all circumstances will be to diminish individual effort and 
to encourage dearer production, for which the consumers would 
have to pay. 

The one thing certain about the operation of such an 
incomplete régie as this, which \will simply make the State 
a monopolist middleman on a ance is that the price of 
spirit will at once become much dearer, for little economy can 
be effected in the cost of retailing to the public, and it will 
be the object of the monopoly to give the Empire a largely 
increased revenue from that commodity. Twenty years ago 
Prince Bismarck worked out a scheme of the kind which would 
have yielded the Treasury an additional fourteen million pounds; 
but in the interval the taxation of spirit has several times been 
increased, and while the great advantage of taxation by monopoly 
is a considerable elasticity in revenue, this high figure seems for 
the present unrealisable. It might almost appear as though the 
corn and potato growers of East Prussia had paved the way for 
a State spirit monopoly by the establishment some years ago of 
their Central Agency for the Spirit Trade, which acts as a depot 
for the large distilleries and regulates prices on a more or less 
monopolistic basis. So far as that part of the Empire is con- 
cerned—and Prussia furnishes 85 per cent. of the country’s 
entire spirit production—the distillers have both shown the 
Government that the successful concentration of the spirit 
trade is possible and have provided the needed machinery. 


THE PRICE OF EMPIRE 417 


Perhaps the most novel method of reinvigorating the Empire’s 
finance is that which Professor A. Wagner proposed at the 1908 
conference of the Land Law Reform Society, held in Stuttgart. 
It was none other than the institution of an Imperial tax on 
unearned increment, from the proceeds of which the Empire 
should be allowed to retain as much as it required, while the 
balance should be handed over to the individual States. It is 
a fatal objection to such a tax, however, that the municipalities 
have forestalled the Empire; a considerable number of towns, 
both large and small, in Prussia and other States, encouraged 
by their Governments, have already introduced a special tax on 
the increased value of land; and before long this tax will in all 
probability be recognised as an integral part of the system of 
_ local taxation, both in town and country. 

“We have entered on a period of large votes,’ said a well- 
known Liberal member of the Reichstag at the outset of what 
is known as the ‘‘ Block’’ régime, and the prediction has already 
come true. Yet if the Empire is both spending and borrowing 
more freely than ever before, the wealth of the nation has greatly 
increased during the past twenty years of strenuous industrial 
enterprise. The Colonial Secretary and ex-banker, Herr 
Dernburg, recently estimated the extent of the increase 
between 1884 and 1904 at 30,000 millions of marks, or 
roughly £1,420,000,000, a figure which the Socialist news- 
paper Vorwdrts accepted without demur. All estimates of 
the kind are to a large extent guesswork, however, for 
the data for calculation are extremely inadequate. So far as 
Prussia is concerned the most unexceptionable—yet still very 
partial—evidence is that afforded by the income-tax returns. 
Baron von Rheinbaben, the Prussian Minister of Finance, 
stated recently that the income liable to this tax increased 
from £285,000,000 in 1892 to £516,000,000 in 1906 and 
£573,000,000 in 1907, an increase of £288,000,000 in twenty- 
five years. The total number of income-tax payers in Prussia— 
that is, persons with incomes exceeding 900 marks—-was in 
1892 2,485,858; the number in 1906 was 4,672,429, an 
increase of 2,236,571, or 91°8 per cent.; the increase of 
_ population having been in the interval 28°7 per cent. Nine- 
tenths of the increase in the number of taxpayers which took 
place between 1892 and 1906 occurred in the income group 

28 


418 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


between 900 and 8,000 marks, the number of whom increased 
from 2,118,969 to 4,145,954. The taxpayers in the income 
group 3,000 to 6,000 marks increased from 204,711 to 343,411 ; 
those in the group 6,000 to 9,500 marks from 55,381 to 89,376; 
those in the group 9,500 to 30,500 marks from 46,096 to 74,755; 
those in the group 80,500 to 100,000 marks from 9,039 to 
15,760; and those with incomes exceeding 100,000 marks from 
1,659 to 3,178. 

The following classification of the income-tax payers between 
1895 and 1907 shows that there is a gradual movement of the 
earning part of the population across the exemption line (£45), 
and that the Socialist dogma of the increasing impoverishment 
of the masses is not substantiated by Prussian experience:— 


Percentage of Taxpayers with Incomes of — 


900 to 3,000 to 6,000 to Over 
3,000 M 6,000 M. 9,500 M 9,500 M 
1895 87°54 8°13 2°17 2°16 
1896 87°52 8°10 2:18 2°19 
1897 « 87°51 8°09 2°18 2°23 
1898 87°29 8:20 2°23 2°28 
1899 87°36 8:12 2°22 2°30 
1900 87°74 7°86 2°14 2°25 
1901 88°05 7°86 2°08 2-20 
1902 88:04 7°75 2:07 2°14 
1903 88°15 7°72 2°05 2°08 
1904 88°38 7°59 2-00 2°01 
1905 eon 88°58 7°45 1:97 2°02 
1906 eee 88°73 7°33 1-93 2°01 
—_—__Y OO” 

1907 obs 89°60 8°53 1°87 


It is true that the number of persons exempted from the 
payment of income-tax in Prussia increased between 1895 and 
1906 from 8,495,790 to 8,835,226, an increase of 839,486, or 4 
per cent., but the population increased during the same period 
by nearly 20 per cent. At the same time Prussia has a growing 
class of “‘ millionaires,” though as the calculation is in marks, 
the German millionaire is only 5 per cent. of the English 
millionaire, and about 20 per cent. of the American. Of these 
minor millionaires, Prussia had in a recent year 5,510 in the 
towns and 1,899 in the country districts. Of the inhabitants of 
Berlin 6°7 per 10,000 were millionaires, and other ratios were 
—Aix-la-Chapelle 7°2 per 10,000, Bonn 12°38, Charlottenburg 
17°8, Cologne 5°9, Dusseldorf 8°1, Frankfort-on-Main 17°9, and 
Wiesbaden 20°7. In absolute numbers Berlin took the first 


THE PRICE OF EMPIRE 419 


place with 1,808, Frankfort following with 584, then Charlotten- 
burg with 381, Cologne with 255, Wiesbaden with 208, 
Dusseldorf with 198, Breslau with 161, Magdeburg and Hanover 
with 107, Bonn with 101, and Aix-la-Chapelle with 72. 

It is impossible to form any useful estimate of the savings ot 
the working classes separately, inasmuch as the public savings 
banks are largely used by the lower middle classes. It may 
be noted, however, that the aggregate deposits in these banks at 
the end of 1904 were £590,000,000, of which some £40,000,000 
had been deposited that year, and of these amounts £380,000,000 
and £26,000,000 respectively fell to Prussia. 

The question whether Germany under modern conditions is a 
land of high or low taxation is evidently one which does not 
admit of a summary answer. A well-known German statistician, 
Dr. F. Zahn, recently estimated the amount raised in direct 
taxation per head of the population at 8s. 2d, and that raised in 
indirect taxation £1 6s. 6d., and in view of these figures he 
contended that Germans were not so highly taxed as either 
Frenchmen or Englishmen. Obviously, however, no comparison 
of the kind can profitably be made which omits to take into account 
the relation of taxation toincome. Moreover, comparison between 
the United Kingdom and Germany is invalidated owing to 
the fact that a large part of the revenue of the German Empire 
is drawn from taxes upon corn and other foodstuffs which have 
no place in the British fiscal system, and it is of the nature 
of such taxes that they entail upon the community a charge far 
larger than that represented by the revenue actually yielded to 
the Treasury. Hence when the late German Minister for the 
Interior, Count von Posadowsky, stated in the Reichstag on 
a recent occasion (March 2, 1907), ‘‘I consider it to be proved 
that the English people are more heavily taxed by their system 
of finance duties than the German people with protective duties,’’ * 
Deputy Gothein at once rejoined that, ‘‘Owing to the incidence 
of the duties on bread and meat alone, the Germans pay 
£1 10s. 6d. per head per annum, though the customs returns, 


| based on mere imports, only show a tax per head of 3s.” 


1 
? 
i 
y 
\ 


Further, in Germany taxation, direct as well as indirect, falls 


- upon a far wider circle of the population than in this country ; 


Aa : 
* Count von Posadowsky found proof of this in the heavy taxation of 
spirit in the United Kingdom. 


4290 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


the German duties on articles of daily consumption and use are 
of universal incidence and cannot be evaded, while the income- 
tax falls upon very small incomes. 

The general principles governing this tax in Prussia are 
briefly as follows. The gross taxable income is made up of 
money and ‘‘money value,’ the latter including all payments 
in kind, rent-value of houses used by the occupiers, &c. 
Liability to the payment of the tax begins with an income 
exceeding £45, but the earnings of members of a household are 
counted together. Deductions are allowed in respect of pre- 
miums paid to sickness, accident, old age and invalidity, widows’ 
and orphans’, and pension funds, also life insurance premiums 
to a maximum of £30. Further, where the taxable income 
of the head of a household does not exceed £150 a deduction 
of £2 10s. may be made from the income before declaration 
for every member of the household under 14 years; should 
there be three such minors the taxpayer is reduced at least 
one step in the income schedule; and should there be four such 
minors he is reduced two steps. Extr& allowances are made 
on account of special educational expenditure, also sickness 
and other misfortunes. Subject to these alleviations the scale of 
taxation is as follows for incomes up to £5,000 (the mark being 
taken as equivalent to a shilling) :— 


Income Groups. Income Tax. 
£ os. d. & s. d. £ a. d& 
45 0 0 to 52 10 0 ‘ ad 0 6 0 
on 1000 4, 60 0 0 as 09 0 
60 0 0, 6710 0 wee 12011950 
67210420. een SD 4080 ia OTA 
We, OO, o, uba La fT es 
8210 0 ,, 90 0 0 7 160 
90,040 re.) 1086. 1D ony). Gob ee 
108°..0° Orr red 0) oe 
120 0 0 ,, 135 0 0 nd 2 2 0 
VD ee ee | Bee 150 O 0 os 212 0 
200) UO ak 165 0 O a a 
165 00 , 180 0 0 > IS4LOED 
18040 «Ones eee ua: Oo 4 0 0 
195 0 0 ,, 210 0 O 412 0 
210 0 0..,, 225 0 0 5. 4 0 
OF RE | re 250 O O 6518 0 
250 0 0 ,, 275 0 0 612° 0 
275 0 0 ,, 300 0 O T 8 Quy 
BOQ 1) |). 325 0 0 8 0 0 
£00" OG" O° ’,, 425 0 0 11:12°'0 
475: 0° 0 525 0 0 15 0 O 
975°°0. 0 ,; 1,025 10 0 30 0 O 
1,475 0 0 ,, 1,525 0 0 45 0 0 


THE PRICE OF EMPIRE 491 

Ineome Groups. Income Tax. 

£2 sd. £ es. da. Bias a, 
1,900 0 0 ,, 2,000 0 0 ad ee 64 0 0 
2,400 0 0 ,, 2,500 0 O os .. 84 0 0 
2,900 0 0 ,, 3,000 0 0 ¥. 2 .. 104 0 O 
3,400 0 0 ,, 3,500 0 0 A ae owe 124 0.0 
8,900 0 0 ,, 4,000 0 0 “ia oa -. 145 0.0 
4,400 0 0 ,, 4,500 0 O ce Pe oooh bh Oe O30 
4,900 0 0 ,, 5,000 0 0 aba ea 195 0 O 


It should be added, however, that, owing to the need of 
more revenue, the Prussian Minister of Finance has announced 
the immediate increase of the rates of taxation for incomes 
exceeding £500, with a view to raising two million pounds. 

It is impossible to make any exact comparison of the incidence 
of the income-tax in the various German States owing to the 
fact that the exemption limit and the grouping of taxable 
incomes differ greatly. For example, while in Prussia incomes 
not exceeding £45 are not taxed, in Saxony the limit is only 
£25. If, however, incomes below £45 in Prussia, Baden, 
and Hesse, and below £47 10s. in Wurtemberg are disregarded, 
an approximate comparison may be made. The following was 
the taxation per head of persons assessable to income-tax in 
1905 or 1906 (as stated) in these States, subject to a certain 
modification in the cases of Baden and Hesse, since their 
returns include in addition to individual taxpayers corporate 
bodies (companies, &c.) :— 








Prussia (1905). 

Income Groups. Tax per head. 

Civ Gia Oe 

£45 to £150 oe coe eee eee eee 0 14 7 

£150 to £300 4 ve bee oe 410 4 

£300 to £475 ok ee 10 1 5 

£475 to £1,525 sh 23 3 8 

£1,525 to £5,000 ... 85 13 8 

Qver £5,000 wee dee wee ane 468 8 1l 

Average ... eee £2 210 

Wiirtemberg (1905). 

& s. da. 

£45 to £152 10s. eee eee eee 0 13 7 

£152 10s. to £300 ... ae Sa 446 

£300 to £500 Ses bes a 112245 

£500 to £1,500 PAN te “au ie 29 17 11 

£1,500 to £5,000 _ ... son ae an 103:..7 iL 
£5,000 and over... ay de ede 510 17 11 . 

Average «+. tes &2 6 1 


422 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Baden (1906). 





£ s. 4. 
£45 to £145 012 4 
£150 to £295 we vee Vole ene 813 4 
£300 to £495 bie a ih me 818 4 
£500 to £1,450 ba ak ome eye Pe We FS 
£1,500 to £4,950... VN Bm, pl 86 19 10 
€5000 and over we hat Mes eae 60413 2 
Average ... vee £114 4 

Hesse (1905). 
2 s. d. 
£45 to £160 Ay A bY Lay 10 4 
£160 to £300 ake wi me Sua 41110 
£300 to £500 es Ann a a 15: 8.6 
£500 to £1,500 ee ees tia azt 25 O's 
£1,500 to £5,000 ... Bes ee alk 88 13 8 
£5,000 and over aes put ve die 515 4 0 





Average ... ses £2 9 & 


six broad classes—(a) ‘‘ small’? isgomes of £150 and under, 
(b) ‘‘ moderate ’’ incomes of from £150 to £300, (c) “‘ medium ”’ 
incomes of from £300 to £500, (d) ‘‘ ample” incomes of from 
£500 to £1,500, (e) ‘‘large’”’ incomes of from £1,500 to £5,000, 
and (jf) ‘‘ very large’ incomes of £5,000 and over, the incidence 
of taxation falls as follows in the States named :— 


If, with a German statistician, “homes these incomes into 


Group. | Prussia. Wiirtemberg. Baden. Hesse. 


Bi Bry de &\p. | a, Fn: ae 6 0 £s. d 
(a) 014 7 013 7 012 4 10 4 
(b) 410 4 4 4 6 818.4 41110 
(c) 1011S Be Anes} 818 4 15 3 6 
(d) 23 8 8 29 17 11 22 ao 25 90 0 
(e) 85 13 8 103 07 11 86 19 10 88 13 8 
(f) 468 811 510 17 11 60413 2 615 4 0 


The incomes in class (a) are, of course, entirely free from 
taxation in the United Kingdom, yet in Prussia they were in 
1906 taxed to the extent of £3,000,000. 

According to an estimate published by the German Imperial 
Statistical Office * the revenue raised in 1906 in direct and 
indirect taxation in Prussia, for national as distinguished from 
Imperial purposes, was £14,850,000; that raised in Bavaria 


* ++ Statistisches Jahrbuch fiir das deutsche Reich.” 


THE PRICE OF EMPIRE 423 


was £4,422,000; that raised in Saxony was £3,166,000; in 
Wurtemberg £1,889,000, and in Baden £1,977,000. Costs of 
collection and administration are not included. The amount 
of taxation raised in the whole of the federal States for their 
own use is given at £33,158,000 (£24,258,000 in direct and 
£8,900,000 in indirect taxes), equal to 10s. 10d. per head of the 
population. The taxation per head in the principal States was 
as follows :— 


Direct Taxes. Other Taxes. Total. 

gs. d. 8. ad. 8. d 

Prussia eae ost ina ® LG TiAl 
Bavaria ant on we Oe Tan 13 6 
Saxony ie ait we kk EE 2 5 14 4 
Wirtemberg... es ». 10 0 6 5 16 6 
Baden 13h ies .. ll O 8 8 19 8 
Hesse ‘sel Jae naive Ct Ra alle § 14 4 
Mecklenburg-Schwerin ... 5 11 0 11 6 10 
Oldenburg ... he oe, Le ity 10 3 
Brunswick ... on adst Gre 0 ll 10 0 


The State taxation in most of the minor principalities only 
ranged from 5s. to 8s. per head of the population. That in the 
Free Cities of Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck was £2 18s., 
£2 18s. 5d., and £1 18s. 6d. respectively, owing to the fact that 
in these cities State and municipal expenditure is to a large 
extent inseparable. 

The comparative lowness of this taxation cannot fail to strike 
English taxpayers. Next to more frugal budgets, the principal 
explanation is that most of the German States are to-day reaping 
substantial benefit from the policy of national enterprise which 
their Governments have immemorially adopted, particularly in 
regard to railways, domains, and forests. No less a net sum than 
fiity and a half million pounds was earned for the German nation 
in 1906 by the various commercial undertakings of the Empire 
and the States—thirty-four and three-quarter millions by the rail- 
ways, and fifteen and three-quarter millions by other enterprises 
—which sum it would otherwise have been necessary to raise by 
taxation. Of Prussia’s revenue for 1906 just over one-half was 
derived from fiscal enterprises, properties, and capital investments 
of various kinds. The fact is instructive as illustrating the 
wisdom of that policy of State enterprise which Frederick the 
Great first placed upon a systematic footing in Prussia, and 
which has since passed naturally into the entire theory and spirit 
of national government. 


CHAPTER XXI 
CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL INFLUENCES 


The stability of the Empire—Attitude towards the Empire of the Prussian 
landed party—Prince Bismarck on Prussian particularism—The enthu- 
siasm for the Empire has abated since 1871—Monarchy has been 
strengthened in the interval—Goethe on the unity of Germany—The 
federal States in a stronger position than before the Empire was estab- 
lished—Reasons for the chastened mood of present-day Imperialism— 
The Reichstag has proved disappointing—German political parties and 
their fondness for criticism—The Imperial constitution a compromise 
between incompatible theories of government—The nation outside the 
government of the country—Competence of the Reichstag—The Govern- 
ment is not independent of parties but can only do its work by reliance 
on a party alliance—Effect upon public life of the impotence of parties— 
The present trend of constitutional controversy in Germany—The Prussian 
franchise question—The three-class system of election—The redistribu- 
tion question in Prussia and the Empire—The argument against the 
numerical principle of representation stated—The theory of ministerial] 
responsibility—German constitutional government favours the ‘‘ personal 
régime.” 


NE of the stock subjects of political discussion in Germany, 
and particularly in the North and the nervous metropolis, is 

the alleged instability of the Empire as founded thirty-seven 
years ago. When it is added that this time-honoured theme 
is generally resuscitated when unusual tension prevails be- 
tween the Imperial Government and the opposition parties in 
the Reichstag, the value of the speculations which are indulged 
in on occasions of the kind will be fairly understood. No one 
in Germany seriously thinks that the Empire will, or can, ever 
be undone. It is probably true that thousands of Germans 
would be willing to go back to the status quo ante 1871 if that 
were possible, but their motives are seldom those which political 


sagacity would approve. One section of the nation in particular 
424 


CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL INFLUENCHS 426 


has never felt warmly towards the Empire. During the irre- 
sponsible agitations which in 1848 aimed at creating a united 
Germany out of due time the principal leaders of the counter- 
movement were found amongst the landed nobles of Prussia, 
whose hostility was expressed in a popular song of which one 
verse ran: ‘‘ Prussians would we remain; the devil take the 
scheme that would make a Germany and ruin Prussia.’ The 
Conservative landowners of Prussia accepted the Empire when it 
had to be, but they never loved or greatly cared for it, and if 
it could be safely dissolved to-day a majority of them would 
probably be glad to give a helping hand. Even the Emperor 
William I. was to the last prouder and more at home as the 
head of the Hohenzollern monarchy than the head of an empire 
over which he exercised no territorial sway. Prince Bismarck 
writes in his ‘‘ Recollections ’’ :— 

‘IT have had, perhaps, harder struggles to fight against 
Prussian particularism than against the particularism of the 
other German States and dynasties, and my relation to the 
Emperor William I. as his born subject made these struggles all 
the harder forme. Yet in the end, despite the strongly dynastic 
policy of the Emperor, but, thanks to his national policy, which, 
dynastically justified, became even stronger in critical moments, 
I always succeeded in gaining his countenance for the German 
side of our development, and that, too, when a more dynastic 
and particularist policy prevailed on all other hands.” 

It is not, however, dynastic reasons alone which moderate the 
attachment of the East Elbe landed aristocracy to the Empire ; 
the liberal spirit of the Imperial constitution is an even greater 
stumbling-block. Hence its openly avowed desire to see the 
Imperial franchise narrowed and the power of parties in the 
Reichstag further restricted, so as to do away with the effective 
check which a combination of groups can always impose upon 
the federal Government. 

It would be a mistake to attach too great importance to the 
periodical fits of self-distrust and nervousness which come over 
the whole nation, irrespective of politics and parties. The 
_ Empire is established and secure; no harm can come to it from 
within; it is able to resist any conceivable hostility from without. 
Germany at heart knows this, but at times it forgets it, and as 
a consequence falls into moods of hypochrondria and panic which 


426 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


do not show the German national spirit and character at their 
best. If one may employ German terms, the nation’s objective 
strength does not at such times find full subjective expression. 
Nevertheless, all the pessimistic controversies of the past few 
years have failed to bring to the front one single advocate of 
return to the political disunity which preceded the French war. 

It is desirable to emphasise this fact of the Empire’s 
absolute stability and solidarity in order to pave the way for 
an admission which might appear at first sight to be incon- 
sistent with it. For although everybody ia Germany is by 
conviction or policy an Imperialist, it is impossible to say 
that the enthusiasm with which the proclamation of the 
Empire at Versailles was greeted over a generation ago exists 
in the same measure to-day. As in everything else which 
he did, so in bringing to a head the Imperialistic movement 
Prince Bismarck chose the psychological moment, and that 
moment was the victorious close of a struggle in which all the 
German States had been engaged shoulder to shoulder. The 
creation of the new Empire was the political finish to a great 
military achievement. It enabled the victors to stand forward 
before the world as one in peace just as they had been one 
in war, and it incorporated the aspirations of the German race 
as they had never been incorporated before. The patriotic heats 
of those days have cooled in the interval. The ‘‘ ideal” concep- 
tion of the Empire has given place to a ‘‘real’’ conception ; the 
Empire is regarded as no less necessary than before, but for 
practical reasons—for the collective assertion of Germanism in 
‘international affairs and for the security of the small federal 
States in their dealings with the larger. 

The first of these motives both explains and justifies itself; 
the second will be hardly less obvious to those who remember 
the condition of Germany before its kingdoms and principalities 
were welded into an Empire by bonds of blood and iron. Much 
was undoubtedly taken from the States by the constitution under 
which the Empire and its legislative and executive organs were 
established, yet, paradoxical though it may seem, the States have 
become stronger for having abdicated no inconsiderable portion 
of their rights. And chiefly their independent existence has 
been permanently assured; their Sovereigns have been confirmed 
in their prerogatives; and many more or less oligarchiec consti- 


CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL INFLUENCES 427 


tutions continue to-day which might have disappeared had these 
Sovereigns remained isolated and dependent on their indi- 
vidual strength. No one can doubt that monarchy—using the 
word in a broad sense as implying every system of hereditary 
personal government represented in the federation—is at least as 
strong to-day in Germany as ever in its history, in spite of the 
unwearied endeavours of the Social Democratic party to famili- 
arise the masses of the people with the vocabulary of 
republicanism. 

In his ‘‘ Recollections ’’ Prince Bismarck has cited a negative 
proof of this fact, the significance of which will be understood 
by every student of German politics. Speaking of the revolu- 
tionary movements of 1848, which in truth were more political 
than anti-dynastic, he says: ‘‘ Belief in the power of the 
monarchy was, erroneously enough, for the most part slighter 
than belief in one’s own importance; people dreaded nothing 
more than to be considered servile or ‘ministerial.’ Some strove 
according to their convictions to strengthen and support the 
monarchy. Others fancied that they would find their own and 
their country’s welfare in contending with and weakening the 
King; and this is a proof that, if not the power, at least belief 
in the power, of the Prussian monarchy was weaker than it is 
now.” That is a judgment as accurate as it is profound. If 
one would measure the loss of respect which monarchy suffered 
in those crooked days of Prussian and German history, when 
the Crown could hardly count on the aid of its ‘‘ material forces 
packed into a limited space,” to use Bismarck’s grim synonym 
for the army, it is only necessary to recall the act of the 
inimitable Chief President of the province of Brandenburg, who 
in March, 1848, issued a proclamation stating: ‘‘ A revolution 
has broken out in Berlin: I will take up a position above 
parties!’’ Whether it be true or not that there has of late 
years been a diminution of that ‘“‘ manly pride before kingly 
thrones ’’ which Schiller applauded, there can be no doubt that 
not merely in Prussia but in the smaller kingdoms and princi- 
palities the intrinsic power of the Crown is greater than ever. 
In some States it has been strengthened by the popularity of 
the rulers, in others by well-considered concessions to progressive 
political ideas or by fear of the subversive tendencies apparent 
in modern society; in all the institution of monarchy has 


428 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


deepened its roots in the firm and generous soil of local 
patriotism. 

‘“*Tf any one thinks,’”’ wrote Goethe in 1828, ‘‘ that the unity 
of Germany consists in the Empire having one single capital, 
he errs.” If any one still held that view in 1871 he is able to 
reflect to-day that because of the Empire—and not in spite of it, 
as might be supposed—particularism is more vigorous than when 
by assenting to a union of States it feared that it was sealing its 
own doom. The very security of the Empire and the inevitable 
expansion of its functions have made the federal States more 
jealous of the independence that remains to them in internal 
matters and have strengthened the sentiment of patriotism and 
dynastic loyalty within the twenty-six ‘‘ narrow fatherlands”’ 
which compose the federation. 

It was Prince Bismarck’s theory that German patriotism 
could not exist independently of dynastic attachments. ‘‘ The 
German’s love of the fatherland,’’ he writes, ‘‘ has need of a 
prince on whom it can concentrate its attachment. Suppose 
that all the German dynasties were suddenly deposed, there 
would then be no likelihood that German national sentiment 
would sufiice to hold all Germans together from the point ot 
view of international law amid the friction of European politics. 
The Germans would fall a prey to more closely welded nations 
if they once lost the tie which resides in the prince’s sense 
of community of rank. History shows that in Germany the 
Prussian stock is that of which the individual character is most 
strongly stamped, yet no one could decisively answer the question 
whether, supposing the Hohenzollern dynasty and all its rightful 
successors to have passed away, the political cohesion of Prussia 
would survive. Is it quite certain that the eastern and the 
western divisions, that Pomeranians and Hanoverians, natives 
of Holstein and Silesia, of Aachen and Konigsberg, would then 
continue as they are now, bound together in the indisruptible 
unity of the Prussian State? Or Bavaria—if the Wittelsbach 
dynasty were to vanish and leave not a trace behind, would 
Bavaria continue to hold together in isolated unity? . . . The 
preponderance of dynastic attachment and the use of a dynasty 
as the indispensable cement to hold together a definite portion 
of the nation calling itself by the name of the dynasty is a Sevag 
peculiarity of the German Empire.” 


CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL INFLUENCES 429 


It is certain that to-day, no less than before the Empire was 
established, the strongest appeal to Germans is that which is 
addressed to them as Prussians, Saxons, Bavarians, Wurtem- 
bergers, Badeners, or whatever their stock may be, and that real 
though their pride in the Empire is, and resolute though their 
determination to maintain it at all costs, the subjects of even the 
smallest units in the federation would calmly see the Empire 
pass away rather than sacrifice the independence of their own 
‘narrow fatherland.’’ Nothing so moves the spirit of particu- 
larism to its depths as any suggestion that the Empire should 
invade further the province of government reserved to the States. 
Whether we regard the opinion of the North or of the South, 
indeed, the conclusion is irresistible that the great task of 
Imperial statesmanship in the future will be to train Prussians, 
Bavarians, Saxons, Wurtembergers into Germans, and to cause 
the Empire to take a place of greater confidence in the conscious- 
ness of the nation. 

One of the strongest reasons for the more chastened mood of 
modern Imperialism is the prevailing disappointment with the 
political system which was created as a part of the machinery of 
Empire. The Reichstag dissatisfies all parties, and for this the 
parties themselves are commonly blamed. Many hard words 
have been written upon the tendency of German politicians to 
carry partisanship to extremes and to multiply organisations for 
no other obvious purpose than to give restless followers an 
opportunity of becoming leaders on a small scale, and especially 
upon their unlimited capacity for futile negative criticism. ‘‘The 
fondness for criticism and hypercriticism is stronger amongst us 
than is good for the normal welfare of the body politic,’ lamented 
a leading German newspaper recently. For this fault, at least, 
a certain justification may be pleaded. German parties criticise 
because they are able to do little else. By its constitution the 
Reichstag is an attempted compromise between incompatible 
theories of government—the active monarchical theory embodied 
in the constitutions of most of the States and the democratic 
theory embodied in the Western Parliamentary system. It is 
true that the Reichstag is elected by manhood suffrage, and that 
it is an equal factor with the Federal Council—or Council of 
the State Governments—in all legislation. Yet the Executive 
is entirely beyond its control; all Ministers are appointed and 


430 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


removed by the will of the Emperor, and no combination of 
parties is able to shake their position, either collectively or 
individually. The result is that although the nation is entirely 
responsible for the election of the legislative assembly it is still, 
to all intents and purposes, outside the government of the 
country; it discusses freely, criticises with remorseless exactitude, 
votes with perfect freedom, yet it always does these things with 
the feeling that it is an outsider. * 

Even the legislative power is not in reality equally dis- 
tributed. Nominally the Diet can initiate legislation, and 
either oppose or amend the Government’s measures without 
limitation, just as the Government can initiate legislation and 
accept or reject all private Bills, but in practice this principle 
of co-equality works unevenly. It is far more difficult for a party 
or a private member to secure the passage of a Bill than for the 
Government to pilot its own measures through the House, so 
difficult, indeed, that the backers of private Bills prefer that their 
proposals should be accepted by a hypercritical Minister in 
a truncated form rather than carry on a struggle whose failure 
can be foreseen. As regards official measures, the Diet is 
theoretically quite as competent to block the legislative 
machinery, but whatever its attitude towards the Government 
may be it cannot stultify itself and bring discredit on parlia- 
mentary institutions by pursuing a merely obstructive policy ; 
it wants legislation, and in default of the power to carry its own 
it accepts that of the Government and co-operates with greater 
or less ardour in passing many projects which do not embody its 
views rather than be guilty of inaction and sterility. 

It is a common argument of German publicists of a certain 
school that the absence of party government enables the 
Executive to take a position outside fractions, and, because 
viewing society and its problems from the calm empyrean 
heights of mental detachment and impartiality, to legislate in 
a spirit free from prejudice and preconception. But reasoning 
of this kind is weakened by the fact that far from being 


¥* How deeply ingrained in the Ministerial mind also is the idea that the 
Government and nation are distinct and independent may be judged from 
the following words spoken so lately as December 9, 1907, in the Reichstag 
by the Imperial Secretary of State for the Interior: ‘‘ How can you expect 
complete, unreserved, and unlimited confidence from the Government and in the 
jame breath say to it, ‘ We distrust you’? If we wish to come to a condition of 
real liberty we must show confidence one to the other.”’ 


CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL INFLUENCES 431 


superior to parties the Government can only carry on business 
at all by concluding the closest possible alliance with some 
group or combination of groups which may seem to offer the 
best chances of assuring it a working majority. This is not 
merely the case in the Diets of the States; it is even more the 
case in the Diet of the Empire, where the popular principle of 
representation has been carried farthest. During the past 
thirty years, with one single brief interruption, the majority 
party in the Prussian Lower House has been the Conservative 
party, and for the purpose of securing its support the Govern- 
ment has had to follow a consistent plan of bargaining. 

In the Imperial Diet during the same period three parties 
have been successively used by the Government for its purposes, 
and as a consequence the Government has itself been used by 
these same parties in turn—the National Liberals, the Con- 
servatives, and, during the six years 1901 to 1906, the Centre. 
From the establishment of the Diet until 1874 Prince Bismarck 
governed solely by the aid of the National Liberals. By origin 
a Prussian party, which came into being in 1866 at the close of 
the ‘‘ Conflict-time’”’ as an offshoot of the Radical group, the 
National Liberal party facilitated Bismarck’s return to constitu- 
tionalism after four years of government without budget had 
given to Prussia the victorious army of Sadowa. No party 
threw itself so enthusiastically into the cause of Imperial unity 
when the Constituent Diet of the North German Confederation 
was elected in 1867 or worked more loyally and patriotically in the 
Diet of 1871.- Speaking of the National Liberal party at a later 
date, when the Government alliance was at an end, Prince 
Bismarck said, ‘‘ The foundations of the Empire were prepared 
with its support and co-operation.’ In the first Reichstag the 
National Liberals were 116 in number, and out of the second 
elections in 1874 they emerged 155 strong, forming then nearly 
one-half of the whole assembly. During this period domestic 
legislation followed moderate lines, and it was well for the 
Empire that the Government had the support of a party which 
enabled it to avoid extremes. Yet pliable as the National 
Liberals were, and all the more so after the original founders 
were joined by many men who were not Liberals at all but were 
hangers-on attracted solely by the advantage of the Government 
association, Prince Bismarck was at heart too Conservative to be 


432 TME EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY | 


satisfied with an alliance which on most home questions brought 
him into antagonism with his natural associates. Besides, the 
National Liberals wanted a political quid pro quo—a share of 
the spoils of office. ‘‘ They wished to eat out of the same dish,” 
was Bismarck’s way of putting it, ‘‘ but we could not agree to 
that.” 

So the alliance with the National Liberals was abandoned, 
and the Conservatives having meantime become the strongest 
party in the Reichstag, their support was sought and readily 
obtained. The Conservative alliance lasted without break 
until 1890. It was a period fertile in social legislation on 
bureaucratic lines, alternating with repressive measures aimed at 
the Socialists and (in Prussia) the Poles. It was Bismarck’s 
easiest period, for the Conservatives were pliable in his hand, 
and hereditary sympathies united the Chancellor and his allies 
on common ground; hence the compact lasted until Bismarck 
ceased to be Chancellor. More recently the Government has 
under three successive Chancellors relied on the Ultramontane 
party for the necessary majority, and the price that had to be 
paid was no less formally bargained than that demanded by the 
Conservatives while still in a position to turn the scale, though 
in the case of the Roman Catholics confessional rather than 
economic concessions were the currency. 

The fact is that under a system of government that imposes 
upon political parties only a nominal responsibility, yet places the 
Executive at the mercy of whatever party or combination of 
parties may happen for the moment to hold the key of the 
situation, Ministerial alliances can never with certainty be 
concluded on a basis of public principle, and this is the less 
possible in Germany owing to the multiplicity of groups, the 
number of which even now, after many reformations and trans- 
formations, is no less than fifteen. 

Speaking of this aspect of German parliamentary life, Prince 
Bismarck once said: ‘‘ Constitutional government is impossible 
if the Government cannot rely upon one of the greater parties 
even in such exceptional matters as are not entirely to the taste 
of the party—if that party cannot balance its account in this 
way: ‘We support the Government throughout: it is true we 
find that it commits a blunder now and then, but up to the 
present it has produced fewer blunders than acceptable measures; 


CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL INFLUENCES 433 


for that reason we must take the exceptional cases with the rest.’ 
If a Government has not at least one party in the country which 
regards its views and leanings from such a standpoint, then it 
cannot possibly rule constitutionally, but is compelled to 
manceuvre and plot against the constitution; it must manage © 
to get itself a majority artificially or to recruit a temporary one. 
It then degenerates into coalition Ministries, and its policy 
betrays fluctuations which have a very prejudicial effect upon the 
State itself, and more especially upon the Conservative principle.” 
It is not surprising that Prince Bismarck should have come to 
the conclusion that the Conservatives were the only party suited 
to alliances of this kind. 

It is difficult to exaggerate the injurious effect upon public 
spirit and political thought of the condition of impotence in 
which the nation is placed by constitutions which are neither 
absolutist nor democratic, which do, indeed, give to the repre- 
sentative assemblies a certain amount of legislative power, yet 
not sufficient to make parliamentary life serious and fruitful. 
The political groups know their helplessness, and being charged 
with no real responsibility, they dissipate their effort in useless 
discussions and disputations, most of which lack actuality. It 
is doubtful whether in any other progressive country in the world 
a legislative assembly can be found whose oratory is so ineffectual, 
so unreal, while so persistent and interminable, as is that of the 
German Reichstag, elected though this body is by manhood 
suffrage. Conscious that its only unrestricted power is the 
power of criticism, to criticism it devotes itself unwearyingly, and 
a year of its discussions literally covers the whole realm of 
human thought. But the system is no more beneficial for the 
Government or for legislation. Behind the former there is no 
helpful pressure of public opinion. Legislation may be more 
disinterested and more deliberate than when passed under the 
pressure of popular demand, yet, owing to its bureaucratic 
origin, it represents too often the limited views and outlook of a 
narrow class, a class entirely honest and faithful to duty, yet not 
in close touch with practical life and often unable to view from a 
broad social and generously human standpoint the questions 
with which it is called upon to deal. Worst of all, because the 
Ministries and not the Parliaments are responsible for the laws, 


the discontented and disaffected citizen lays his grievances at 
29 


434 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


the door of these Ministries and the form of government which 
produces them. In England individuals and parties may be dis- 
satisfied with political conditions, but they do not, as a rule, 
blame either parliamentary government or the monarchy, for 
they know that the remedy for their wrongs lies more or less 
in their own hands. In Germany the discontented citizen’s 
grievance is against the system of government, because he is 
unable to help himself. 

It may be useful to indicate briefly and objectively the trend 
of present constitutional controversy in Germany. Three main 
questions occupy the minds of constitutional reformers, viz., the 
franchise, redistribution of seats, and Ministerial responsibility. 
The first of these questions refers to the State Diets only—or 
such as have not yet been reformed—the others apply to the 
Imperial Diet as well. 

The Prussian franchise question long ago became an Imperial 
question, in spite of the careful efforts which are made to 
prevent its discussion in the Reichstag. ‘‘ Prussia,’’ said the 
representative of the Radical party in the Prussian Lower House 
on January 14, 1908, ‘‘is the largest of the federal States, its 
influence is decisive for the entire Empire, and this influence is 
determined by the resolutions of the Federal Diet, which has 
to control the actions of Ministers ; hence the Prussian electoral 
law is not merely a Prussian, it is a German question.” The 
interest taken by the other States in the agitation for the modern- 
ising of Prussia’s constitution has its origin in the natural and 
inevitable desire that Prussia should lead the Empire in political 
thought as itleads it in intellectual and economic movements. Itis 
pointed out that the offices of Imperial Chancellor and Prussian 
Minister President were united in one person in order that the 
Empire and Prussia might cultivate uniformity of policy. Upon 
this subject there has arisen an antinomy which proves irksome on 
both sides. Onthe one hand the South German peoples feel that 
they are being kept back by Prussia’s inertia, while on the other 
hand the more backward political parties of Prussia strongly 
resent the endeavour of these more liberal-minded communities 
to force the pace. The leading organ of the Prussian rural 
party, the Berlin Cross Gazette, wrote so late as July, 1907 :— 

‘‘ The contradictions which have always divided Prussia and 
the other German States have again in recent years become con- 


CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL INFLUENCES 435 


spicuous. The principal reasons are the transformation which 
the electoral laws of the Diets have undergone in some of these 
States and especially in South Germany, the wishes stimulated 
by these measures that similar changes may be introduced in 
Prussia, and the negative attitude taken up by the Prussian 
Government, in conjunction with the majority of the Diet, 
regarding these wishes. The South German States, owing to 
their electoral laws being modelled after the franchise of the 
Imperial Diet, act to some extent as champions of political 
progress, while Prussia, which holds fast to its three-class 
franchise, is represented as a stronghold of unenlightened 
reaction. Those circles, however, which identify themselves 
with this calumny will do well to remember that they threaten 
to deprive the Prussian aristocracy, which did its part in the 
sanguinary struggles by which the German Empire was re-estab- 
lished, of any satisfaction with its handiwork. In truth we 
belong to the good Prussians who nowadays often ask the 
question whether the re-establishment of the Empire has 
really been a blessing to us.” 

The advocates of a wider franchise contend that what is good 
for the Empire must be good for its component parts, and they 
point to the fact that the Prussian electoral system has been 
repudiated by all the other important States of the federation. 
This system is known as the three-class system, and it is 
combined with indirect election and open voting. The voting 
power of the primary electors is determined by the amount of 
taxes they pay. A roll of income-taxpayers is prepared 
and the aggregate sum of tax paid is divided into three; the 
taxpayers who form each of these three groups return separately 
a third of the secondary electors, by whom the deputies are 
chosen. Great disproportion of voting power and the under- 
representation of the great multitude of small taxpayers are 
unavoidable results of this system of election. As a rule the 
first class of primary voters only embraces 3 to 5 per cent. of the 
whole; the second class from 10 to 12 per cent., and the third 
class 85 per cent., although in the large towns the disparity is 
much more striking. The effect of this system is to give the 
well-to-do classes a representation altogether disproportionate 
to their number and to leave the working classes almost entirely 
unrepresented, insomuch that until 1908 the Social Democrats 


486 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


were unable to obtain admission into the Lower House of the 
Diet.* 

This unequal representation of the nation is further accen- 
tuated by the fact that there has been no revision of electoral 
districts in Prussia for over forty years, although by a recent 
law ten additional seats have been created, making the total 
number now 443. Hence it comes about that in the province 
of East Prussia the ratio of inhabitants to each deputy is 
63,000; in the city of Berlin it is 170,000. The ratio of 
representation laid down in 1860, based on the census of 1858, 
was one member to every 50,500 inhabitants. The present 
actual ratio is one to every 86,000 inhabitants. If it were 
applied to the 276 existing constituencies, 183 of them would 
be wholly or partially disfranchised, while the remaining 93 
would receive larger representation. Under these circumstances 
the representation of parties is naturally very disproportionate. 
In 1903 the Conservatives polled 19°4 per cent. of the primary 
voters and won 32°3 per cent. of the seats; the National Liberals 
polled 15°83 per cent. of the voters and won 18:0 per cent. of 
the seats; the Radicals polled 5°4 per cent. of the voters and 
won 7°6 per cent. of the seats; the Centre polled 15:0 per cent. 
of the voters and won 22°4 per cent. of the seats; but the 
Socialists, while polling 18°8 per cent. of the voters, failed to 
win a single seat, though, with direct election, they would have 
been entitled to 81 mandates. The existing apportionment of 
seats makes it impossible that the Lower House of the Diet 
should be other than a rural and agrarian assembly, though the 
economic character of the population of the monarchy has during 
the past half-century undergone a complete change. In 1849 
the rural population formed 71°9 per cent. of the whole, the 
urban population 28°1 per cent. ; in 1905 the ratios had become 
54°8 and 45°2 per cent. respectively; yet the representation of 
town and country continues as before. Hence it arises that 
161 members of the Lower House were, in 1908, landowners or 
farmers, while only 17 directly represented trade and industry. 

The forces which are arrayed against any radical reform of 
the Prussian constitution are very strong, and the irreconcilable 
policy and the tactics pursued by the Social Democratic group 


* In the elections of June, 1908, the Socialists won seven seats. They had 
for many years been represented in most of the other State Diets. 


CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL INFLUENCES 487 


in the Imperial Diet have largely helped to create the non 
volumus attitude of the dominant parties. Their contention is 
that the creation of a democratic franchise would be inequitable 
as well as impolitic. Even allowing manhood suffrage to be 
justifiable for the Empire, where it is complementary to universal 
obligations—on the one hand military service, on the other 
indirect taxation, which falls on every inhabitant—and where it 
is essential to have a common meeting-ground on which the 
peoples of all the States may meet on equal terms, the case 
is different in Prussia. There taxation falls unequally, the 
working classes being largely exempted or relieved, while the 
tasks which have to be discharged by the Diet are of a peculiarly 
responsible character. Many politicians who argue thus are not 
hostile to any reform whatsoever ; they would even be prepared 
to give every adult male citizen a vote, provided the better 
educated and propertied classes had a plural franchise, and 
provided representation were distributed in such a way that 
the agricultural industry would be secured a fair share of power, 
on the principle that a State consists of two primary elements— 
the land and the people. 

The Empire has its own redistribution question, and it is 
no less urgent than that of Prussia, yet beset by the 
same difficulties. The present distribution of seats in the 
Imperial Diet is regulated by a law of May 31, 1869, which 
fixed the unit of representation at one member per 100,000 
inhabitants (all towns and districts with over 50,000 inhabitants 
ranking as electoral areas), and stipulated that ‘‘ any increase of 
the number of deputies in consequence of growing population 
shall be determined by law.’’ Nearly forty years have passed 
since the first formation of electoral districts, yet no change 
has taken place in the geographical allotment of seats. Popula- 
tion has enormously increased (the forty millions of 1869 having 
become sixty millions in 1905); there has been a great redis- 
tribution of this population as between East and West and 
between town and country; huge cities have grown out of mere 
villages; an economic revolution of unparalleled extent has 
taken place; industry has dethroned agriculture as the first 
source of occupation and wealth; yet the 397 constituencies 
created in 1871 continue to-day, and not one electoral district 
has a greater or a less representation in the Diet than before. 


438 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Thus Greater Berlin, with 851,000 qualified electors, returns 
eight deputies, yet this same number of electors, spread over fifty 
of the smaller constituencies, returns six times eight. In the little 
State of Schaumburg-Lippe 9,500 electors are sufficient to return 
a deputy, yet in the constituency of Teltow-Beeskow, near Berlin, 
247,500 electors, or twenty-six times as many, have but one 
representative. Waldeck, with 59,000 inhabitants, elects one 
deputy; the Bochum district, with 367,000 inhabitants, and 
one of the divisions of Berlin, with 697,000 inhabitants, have © 
the same representation. As in the case of Prussia, another 
result is the very unequal representation of parties. In 1907 
twenty Conservative seats were won with 210,000 votes, an 
average of 10,500, and six Social Democratic seats with 465,000 
votes, an average of 77,500. On the whole the Socialists polled 
more voters per seat than any other party, viz., 69,020; the 
Radical People’s Party followed with 35,680 voters per seat ; 
then came the German People’s Party with 35,230, the National 
Liberals with 30,600, the Centre with 29,600, the Imperialists 
with 27,060, and the Conservatives with 25,680. Yet with 22°1 
per cent. of the voters the Socialists won only 11°0 per cent. of 
the seats; while with 12°2 per cent. of the voters the Conserva- 
tives won 16°1 per cent. of the seats; and with 23°5 per cent. of 
the voters the Centre won 26°9 per cent. of the seats. If the 
basis of representation laid down forty years ago were adjusted 
to modern conditions the number of deputies would be increased 
to over 600, and the increase would almost exclusively go to the 
large towns ; if, on the other hand, the present number of seats 
were retained and their incidence determined by rule of popula- 
tion as in 1869, there would be a large transference of political 
power from the agricultural to the industrial districts. On the 
whole Prussia would only gain five more seats (241 instead of 
236) at the expense of the more stationary South German 
States, but the provinces of which Prussia is composed would be 
very differently represented, for four agricultural provinces of 
the East would lose 14 seats, while three industrial provinces 
of the West and Centre would gain 19 seats. The Kingdom of 
Saxony would gain six seats, Hamburg would gain three, and 
Bremen one, while Bavaria would lose six, Alsace-Lorraine 
three, Wurtemberg and Mecklenburg-Schwerin two each, and 
Baden and Hesse one each. 


CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL INFLUENCES 439 


Merely to state the far-going changes which would be brought 
about by redistribution on numerical lines is to say that the 
adoption of any such mechanical method of representation is 
impossible in Germany. Here, again, moderate men contend 
that population alone is no rational standard of representation, 
and least of all in a federal assembly in which States so diverse 
in character as, for example, industrial Saxony and agricultural 
Bavaria, have equal lot. The democratic theorists contend that 
** The existing Reichstag should represent existing Germany,” 
and from that proposition they draw the conclusion that numbers 
should be the only measure of voting power. The Conservative 
answer to this argument is that ‘‘ existing Germany ’’ implies 
the utmost variety of economic interests—commerce, industry, 
labour, on the one hand, but agriculture in a score of forms on 
the other, and that no plan of redistribution can be tolerated 
which would give to the towns, with their restless and unstable 
elements, overwhelming representation at the cost of the slow- 
moving yet steady populations of the rural districts. There 
can be no doubt that when the question is taken in hand 
allowance will be made for the special economic characteristics 
of all the States, and a solution of the difficulty will be sought 
by readjusting the worse inequalities suffered by the large towns, 
rather than by reducing the existing representation of stationary 
or retrogressive populations. 

The question of Ministerial responsibility is a more delicate 
one, and the acceptance of the democratic contentions on this 
head would be tantamount to casting the constitutions of the 
Empire and Prussia into the crucible. Both these documents 
speak of Ministerial responsibility, yet neither in the Empire 
nor in Prussia has this responsibility been placed on a formal 
basis ; it exists as a principle, but the principle possesses abso- 
lutely no practical significance. Article 61 of the Prussian con- 
stitution even goes so far as to decree that Ministers may by 
resolution of either of the two Chambers of the Diet be indicted 
before the Supreme Court of the monarchy on account of breach 
of the constitution, corruption, and treason, but the determina- 
tion of all details, the form of legal proceedings, and the penalties 
is left to special laws. ‘These laws have never been passed or 
produced. The opinions held regarding the doctrine of Minis- 
terial responsibility by the Emperor-King William I. were 


440 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


published in a decree of January 4, 1882, in which that 
monarch formally refused to consent to any further restriction 
of the rights of the Crown. ‘‘ The monarchy in Prussia,’’ he 
wrote, ‘‘is after the constitution what it was before the constitu- 
tion—a monarchy of deed. ... The right of the King to 
conduct the government and the policy of Prussia according to 
his judgment is restricted yet not abolished by the constitution. 
The ‘Government documents of the King’ require the counter- 
signature of a Minister, and must be—as was the case before 
the constitution was issued—represented by the King’s Ministers, 
but they remain ‘Government documents of the King,’ from 
whose decision they proceed and who constitutionally expresses 
his will through them. It is therefore not admissible, and tends 
to obscure the constitutional rights of the King, when the exer- 
cise of these rights is represented as though it proceeded from 
the Ministers for the time being responsible and not from the 
King himself. The constitution of Prussia is the expression ot 
the monarchical tradition of this country, whose development is 
based on the living relationships of its Kings to the people. 
These relationships cannot be transferred from the King to an 
appointed Minister, since they attach to the person of the King. 
It is, therefore, my will that both in Prussia and in the legisla- 
tive bodies of the Empire no doubt shall be allowed to exist as to 
the constitutional right of myself and my successors to conduct 
the policy of my Government personally, and that the idea shall 
always be contradicted that the inviolability of the person of the 
King, which has existed in Prussia at all times, and is expressed 
in article 48 of the constitution, or the necessity of responsible 
counter-signature has taken away the character of my Govern- 
ment documents as independent royal decisions.”’ This declara- 
tion states the attitude of the Crown and of its Ministers at the 
present day. 

It is significant that in issuing this corrective to what he 
regarded as insidious political heresies King William I. of 
Prussia claimed to speak as German Emperor. Certainly the 
Imperial Diet has failed so far to create any precedent which 
could give reality to the constitutional theory of Ministerial 
responsibility. All decrees and ordinances, except those of a 
military character, issued by the Emperor in the name of the 
Empire must be counter-signed by the Imperial Chancellor, 


CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL INFLUENCES 441 


who “‘thereby undertakes responsibility”’ (article 17), yet the 
parliamentary control over this Minister which appears to be 
hereby established does not exist in reality. Not only is the 
Chancellor the only Imperial Minister who underlies con- 
stitutional responsibility to the Diet, but even his responsi- 
bility is merely of a political, not of a judicial, kind. He 
may be interpellated, he may receive a vote of censure, yet 
all parties combined cannot secure the removal either of the 
Chancellor or any other Minister unless it be the Emperor’s will 
‘that he shall go. ‘‘If you strike out my salary,’’ Prince 
Bismarck told the Reichstag on December 1, 1885, ‘‘I shall 
simply go to law, and the Empire will be ordered to grant me 
my salary so long as I remain Imperial Chancellor.” The 
doctrine of Ministerial responsibility is therefore a fiction, and 
it must be added that the Conservative groups are well satisfied 
that it should so continue. 

The German systems of parliamentary government, whether 
Imperial or State, do not, of course, commend themselves to 
Western ideas, yet no one who takes the trouble to study 
the constitutions under which they have come into existence 
will have much difficulty in recognising the artificiality of 
much of the talk of ‘‘ personal government’’ which is indulged 
in—far more in the English than the German Press. 
‘What is the Kaiser’s position?” asked an important 
English newspaper a short time ago, and the answer given was, 
“‘He has absolute control over the appointment of every 
Minister, and over the appointment of every minor official in 
every Ministry. In Germany the Kaiser is daily doing that 
which if done in England would cause a revolution.” It would 
be quite as true to say that if the German Parliaments 
were to do what the British Parliament does daily political 
confusion would be the immediate result. And the reason in 
each case is that Germany is not England and England is not 
Germany. Such attempts to draw impossible analogies are to 
be avoided, since they can only obscure thought, create false 
judgments, and foster undesirable prejudices. Germany’s readi- 
ness for full parliamentary government is one question, upon 
which every one with knowledge is entitled to form his own 
opinion; the actual jurisdiction of the German princes and 
peoples is quite another question, and all fair judgments formed 


442 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


upon this separate question must be based on the written con- 
stitutions. These constitutions—even the most recent of them 
—give to the Sovereigns (in the case of the Empire the Sove- 
reigns’ Governments collectively) both the first and the last word 
in legislation ; and if this arrangement implies a certain amount 
of ‘‘ personal government,’’ the answer is that it is the constitu- 
tional usage of the country. It is true that the Sovereigns show 
little disposition to surrender any of the prerogatives which the 
constitutions still secure to them, an attitude upon which, again, 
difference of opinion may justifiably exist, yet, on the other hand, 
they have so far kept to their contracts and have not invaded the 
rights transferred to the people.* 

The Imperial-official. attitude on the subject was stated in 
the Reichstag by Prince Bulow on January 19, 1907, when 
defending himself against the reproach of having during the 
recent elections published an electioneering manifesto, an 
implicit recognition of public opinion which did not prevent the 
doctrinaire Radicals from impugning his action as a departure 
from precedent. ‘‘I have been reproached,’ he said, “ for 
having in the heat of debate said that not the parties but the 
Government bears the responsibility for the safety and prestige 
of the country. In cool blood I maintain that this opinion is 
perfectly correct. Responsibility is primarily an extremely 
personal thing. Let all parties feel themselves morally respon- 
sible for their action as much as they may—and the more the 
better—still, the Government is no party, and its responsibility 
goes much farther. It has to represent all parties, especially in 
foreign affairs, and it bears alone the moral and political responsi- 
bility in great national questions. The claim of the Centre to 
deprive the federal Governments and the War Administration of 
their responsibility I regard as an exaggeration of party com- 
petency which has no justification either in the constitution or in 
the actual fluctuation of majorities in the Reichstag. ... The 
federal Governments have no idea of restricting or violating in 
any way the rights and prerogatives secured to the Reichstag by 
the constitution. They do, however, maintain their right to 
dissolve the Reichstag and appeal to the nation in the event of 

* It may be desirable to say that in thus setting forth the objective facts of 


the constitutional question, with a desire to throw light into obscure places, the 
writer purposely refrains from obtruding his own views. 


CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL INFLUENCES 443 
disputes. The federal Governments desire neither an absolu- 
tistic nor a party régime ; they simply defend the existing con- 
stitutional State and law. Then it is said that the ‘ personal 
régyme’ must be combated and the danger of absolutism be 
averted. But such a danger does not exist and cannot exist 
under the federal constitution of the Empire. The Emperor 
never thinks of claiming rights which are not secured to him by 
the constitution, and in the dissolution of the Reichstag he has 
simply followed the advice of the Chancellor and the proposal of 
the federal Governments that he should make use of his con- 
stitutional right. We live no longer in the time of the Great 
Elector and Frederick the Great, who ruled the monarchy from 
their Cabinet.” 

In a country of Germany’s political traditions progress in the 
assimilation of Western theories of government is necessarily 
slow. ‘‘ And still it moves.”” A wave—it might be more correct to 
say a breath—of liberal sentiment is passing over the land, and 
although Prussia may be the last State to feel the stirring, since 
the movement is from South to North—it, too, will discern and 
respond. In Bavaria, Wurtemberg,* and Baden constitutional 
changes of a far-reaching character have already been introduced, 
bringing the Diets and the mode of their election more into line 
with modern ideas ; Saxony in the Centre is moving in the same 
direction ; even Mecklenburg, the classic home of oligarchy, is at 
work on a new constitution. Prussia, in turn, will before long 
accept the inevitable, and by doing so will strengthen its position 
as the head of the federation. 

* In the recent revision of the constitution of Wiirtemberg the Second 


Chamber was reconstructed on the basis of a universal and equal franchise 
with proportional representation. 


CHAPTER XXII 
THE OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 


The reverse of Social Democracy at the last elections, its extent and causes— 
Attitude of the small farmers and artisans—The rising of the middle 
classes—Prince Bismarck on the apathy of the contented citizen— 
Social Democracy and the middle classes—The Erfurt programme— 
Socialism and the property-instinct in human nature—A propagandism 
of poverty and discontent—Attitude of Socialism towards thrift—Socialist 
house-owners—The barrenness of the Socialist parliamentary party— 
Evidence of party journals on the subject—The negative policy of 
Socialism—Calwer, Bernstein, and Parvus quoted—The new spirit of 
accommodation—Opinions of Herr von Vollmar—Possibility and condi- 
tions of an alliance with the Radicals—Socialism due to the apathy of 
the burgher parties towards social evils—Socialism and monarchy— 
Difference between the Socialism of the North and South. 


O the student of social and economic movements in Germany 
the position of Social Democracy opens out interesting 
channels of speculation, and that the more since for the moment 
Socialism would seem to be under a cloud. There was a 
disposition on all hands to view the Socialist defeat at the 
Imperial elections of January, 1907, in a wrong perspective. 
Germany had become so accustomed to the triumph of Socialism 
at the polls that because of a casual loss of seats it jumped 
to the conclusion that the party of subversion had suffered a 
signal and lasting reverse. And yet the only fair conclusion 
which could be drawn from the elections was that the Socialist 
rate of growth had declined. Both absolutely and relatively 
to the increase of population there was progress, though not on 
the scale experienced in 1903. The aggregate number of votes 
polled by the Socialist candidates in 1907 was 8,258,000, 
comparing with 3,010,770 polled in 1903. The increase was 
equal to 8°2 per cent., against an increase in 1903 of 43 per cent. 


The Socialist vote in 1908 was 81°7 per cent. of the whole; in 
444 


THE OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 445 


1907 it was only 29°0 per cent. Apart from a slight decline 
in five of the minor States, amounting to two thousand votes 
altogether, the only notable falling off was in Saxony, where 
23,200 votes were lost, and in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, where 
5,500 were lost. For the rest, there was a gain in every State, 
including one of 166,900 votes in Prussia, 25,500 in Bavaria, 
20,100 in Baden, 16,000 in Wurtemberg, 15,500 in the Hanse 
Cities, and 13,300 in Alsace-Lorraine. 

In the main the industrial districts showed no sign of defection 
or slackness. In the seven Rhenish- Westphalian constituencies 
of Duisburg, Essen, Bochum, Dortmund, Hagen, Hamm, and 
Iserlohn, the Socialist vote increased from 73,000 in 1898 and 
148,300 in 1903 to 175,600 in 1907. In Essen the Socialist 
vote increased between 1898 and 1907 from 4,400 to 28,800, 
in Duisburg from 7,800 to 28,200, and in Bochum and Dort- 
mund it nearly doubled. The entire Socialist vote in Rhineland- 
Westphalia in 1907 was 15°8 per cent. larger than in 1903. 
In the eight electoral districts of Berlin 330,400 Socialist votes 
were in 1903 polled in the first ballots, a number equal to 46°3 
per cent. of the whole; and in 1907 418,100 Socialist votes, or 
48°5 per cent. of the whole, were polled; of the new electors who 
had qualified in the interval 60 per cent. voted Socialist. On 
the other hand, seats were lost by the party in Leipzig, Breslau, 
Magdeburg, Halle, and Konigsberg. Moreover, they lost votes 
heavily in some of the agricultural constituencies of Prussia— 
€é.g., in the province of Kast Prussia 10,600 votes, and in the 
province of Silesia 9,800 votes. 

The Socialists were 79 strong at the dissolution, and, in 
spite of a larger vote than ever, they returned a decimated band 
of 48. Here the uncertainty of the ballot showed itself. The 
ageregate votes polled by all parties at the first ballots averaged 
about 30,000 per member elected, but the Socialists polled 
75,700 votes per man returned, and with proportional representa- 
tion they would have had 110 seats; four of their seats were 
won with 850,000 votes. On the other hand, the Conservatives 
secured an increase of eleven seats (from 52 to 62) with but a 
slight increase of votes, their average poll per man being under 
17,000, or little more than half the average for the Empire, 
and nearly all the other parties were over-represented to a 
greater or less extent. 


446 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


When allowance has been made for the accidents of fortune, 
however, the fact remains that the last elections showed 
Social Democracy at the dead points. Owing to the growth 
of the electorate since the previous elections, it should have 
gained over half a million votes in 1907, yet the increase 
that fell to it was only half that number. Herr Bebel 
had, indeed, confidently predicted that the three million votes 
polled in 1903 would become four millions and the seventy- 
nine seats a hundred, and wise London journalists agreed 
that it was ‘“‘a not unjustifiable expectation.” Certainly Herr 
Bebel’s party did not allow itself to be deceived by these 
exaggerated hopes of success, for the election was fought 
with all the old zeal and earnestness. There was, it is 
true, nothing new in the party’s programme, which simply 
advanced the well-known demands of Socialism in the well-known 
phrases—the nationalisation of property and the material 
instruments of production, democratic government, the progres- 
sive taxation of all incomes well above the working-class limit, 
the establishment of a citizen army, and improved industrial 
legislation, with a vigorous protest against colonial policy as 
pursued by the Government—yet upon the same programme 
great victories had been won before. This time, however, the 
old shibboleths failed, and the main reasons must be sought 
in two directions—in the greater unity which prevailed amongst 
the opponents of Socialism and in the less unity found amongst 
the Socialists themselves. 

There were other contributory causes, but they were of minor 
importance. For example, it is clear that the Socialists counted 
as in their favour certain factors which were actually working 
against them. Thus it was expected that many peasant 
farmers and small holders would again, as in 1903, vote against 
the Government by way of showing their dissatisfaction with 
the new customs tariff, which had increased the price not only 
of bread corn, but of barley and other feeding-stuffs. It was 
overlooked that beef, pork, butter, and milk had also advanced 
in price, so that they gave a better return than for many years. 
The small farmer had, therefore, no reason for discontent at the 
end of the year 1906, and his vote went according to tradition 
to one of the Ministerial parties. On the other hand, the 
workers’ higher wages had hit hard a multitude of small 


THE OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM . 447 


employers, who, faced by the ever-growing concentration 
of capital, had of late years begun to look to Socialism, 
as the most militant of parties, for help. These, too, recon- 
sidered their position; pressed now on two sides—on the one 
side by the large capitalist and on the other by the wage- 
earner—they listened to Prince Bilow’s appeal for a coalition 
of all the middle-class elements in society and helped to swell 
the Government’s majority. The small retail traders of the 
towns followed suit. Their special grievance was the wholesale 
establishment of Socialist co-operative stores, which attracted 
from them the working-class custom upon which they had 
chiefly depended for a livelihood. Remembering now that the 
Government had consistently hedged round the business of the 
stores with restrictions in the interest of the private trader,* 
they threw all their influence, individually, and collectively 
through their societies, in the Ministerial scale. 

The principal cause of the Socialist reverse was undoubtedly 
the awakening of the middle classes. This is proved by the 
larger proportion of the electors belonging to these classes who 
used their votes. The Socialists boast with truth that they poll 
all the party votes that are physically possible, yet in the 
elections of 1903 only some 76 per cent. of the total number 
of qualified electors exercised the franchise; in 1907 the pro- 
portion increased to 85 per cent. The middle classes had un- 
questionably become alarmed at their own past apathy, and had 
arrived at the conviction that they had allowed Socialism to 
become too strong, heedless of its possible dangers for them- 
selyes. Prince Bismarck more than once spoke with surprise 
and impatience of the easy toleration which the ‘‘ contented’’ 
section of the population showed towards the Socialist movement. 

‘Conservative parties,’ he says in his ‘ Recollections,” 
‘are, as a rule, composed of contented citizens; those who 
attack the status quo are naturally more largely recruited from 
the ranks of persons discontented with existing institutions. 
Among the elements on which contentment depends a com- 
fortable income does not occupy the smallest place. Now it is 
a peculiarity, if not of mankind in general, at any rate of the 
German nation, that the discontented are more industrious and 
active than the contented: the needy more energetic than the 


* As a rule co-operative stores can only sell to their enrolled members. 


448 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


satisfied. Those Germans who are intellectually and physically 
satisfied are doubtless sometimes industrious from a sense of 
duty. But this is not the case with the majority. . . The 
general result is the promotion of superior industry among those 
forces which attack the existing order of things, and inferior 
among those who defend it, t.e., the Conservatives.” 

Only upon one occasion in recent years had a systematic 
electoral campaign been directed against Socialism, viz., in 
1887, when the Conservatives and National Liberals formed 
an alliance for the purpose of beating back the anti-military 
party and of carrying the Bismarck-Molkte Septennate Bill. 
That campaign, however, was not directed at Socialism ex- 
clusively, for the Radicals were also under the then Chancellor’s 
ban, and they lost at the elections even more seats than the 
party of economic revolution. Moreover, that the national 
stirring which took place at that time did not go deep is proved 
by the fact that at the succeeding elections only three years later 
the Conservatives and National Liberals decreased from 220 to 
185, while the Socialists increased their mandates from eleven 
to thirty-five. From that time forward their growth had been 
unchecked; in 1908 they won 44 seats, in 1898, 56; in 
1908, 81; while during ten years their votes increased from 
one and three-quarter millions to over three millions. Rallied 
by Prince Bulow’s appeal, addressed at once to their patriotism 
and their nervousness,* the middle classes showed themselves 
for once in earnest, and the issue of the elections proved that 
when the ‘‘burgher’’ parties agree to sink their differences and 
act together the Socialist advance can be checked. In con- 
stituency after constituency seats were saved against Socialist 
attack solely by a combination of the middle classes. t 


* Prince Billow wrote in his Election Manifesto of January 1, 1907: 
“‘Not only are their communistic dreams of the future opposed to the interests 
of civilisation, the means to their realisation brutal force, but everything that 
tends to reaction in Germany acquires force and right through the Socialistic 
subversion of the ideas of authority, property, religion, and fatherland. The 
frantic philistine leveller, Robespierre, drunk with his own phrases, was followed 
by the sword of Bonaparte. It had to come in order to free the French people 
from the terrorism of the Jacobins and Communists.” 

+ On reading over a forecast which I ventured to make fourteen years ago in 
my work ‘‘ Germany and the Germans” (vol. ii., chapter on ‘‘ The Prospects of 
Social Democracy ’’), I see no reason to modify any word there written. ‘‘The 
time will come,’’ I said, ‘‘ when the adherents of Social Democracy will no 
longer be contented with purely theoretical propagandism. ... The transforma- 
tion of the State and society according to the patterns prepared by Marx and 


THE OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 449 


Almost without exception the literary spokesmen of Social 
Democracy agree that the last elections have entirely shattered 
the entire system of Socialist dogma so far as the middle classes 
are concerned. It had been assumed that society more and 
more tended to a twofold division—on the one hand, a small 
privileged class, characterised by increasing opulence and luxury; 
on the other hand, the great mass of the people, whose destiny 
was increasing penury. The steady growth of a middle and 
lower middle class, recruited from the very ranks of labour, had 
been entirely overlooked, and the discovery was all the more 
unwelcome since the elections showed that this class really holds 
in its hand the balance of political power. 

The promptness with which many of the best-known Socialist 
leaders and writers admitted and renounced the illusion which 
they had hitherto cherished was altogether creditable. ‘‘ The 
disappointment at the result of the late elections,’ wrote 
Herr Edmund Fischer in the Sozialistische Monatshefte, just 
after the contest, ‘‘ is nothing else than disappointment that the 
view hitherto dominant in Socialist circles as to the evolution of 
the proletariate and the middle class was a fallacious one. The 
theory of social impoverishment and economic catastrophes has 
had to be abandoned. Its more tenacious defenders have even 
to-day not admitted it, but they conceal their retreat behind all 
sorts of phrases. The fact is, nevertheless, incontrovertible that 
this view has gone the way of all outlived theories and has no 
longer an open representative in our party. We have, however, 
hitherto feared to draw the logical consequences from the altered 
situation. The attempt is still made to build up our movement 
on the proved fallacy that an ever-increasing part of the popula- 
tion is cast into the proletariate, to become wage-earners; that 
Lassalle, by Bebel and Liebknecht, is not to be thought of. Even did the 
Socialists attain, not only in the Imperial Diet, but in every State Legislature, 
@ representation fully equal to their electoral strength, they would always be at 
the merey of a combination of the other parties, every one of them bound, in 
spite of the widest differences in political theories, to the maintenance of the 
present social order. For it is not true that the possibilities of the growth of 
Socialism in Germany are indefinite. In general its converts will in the future, 
as in the past, be restricted to the labouring classes. And even from these two 
great deductions must be made. In the first place, the Roman Catholics, who 
form a third of the population of the country, may safely be left out of account ; 
and in the second place, the rural labourers will never be wholly won over to 


Socialism, however great the conquests possible in that as yet almost unexplored 
ground. Thus in the Legislatures the Social Democrats can never become a 


majority party.’ 
30 


450 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


the sum total of misery increases, at least relatively; that the 
middle-class is gradually disappearing; and that before long 
there will be on one side a handful of large owners of the means 
of production and on the other an enormous proletariate, so that 
we only need to win this proletariate in order to triumph. Yet 
all the time we see a new and numerous middle class—largely 
drawn from the proletariate itself—growing up and interposing 
itself between the proletariate and capital.” 

‘** The highest interest of this middle class, common to all its 
members,’ Herr Fischer continued, ‘‘is undoubtedly the right 
to exist, yet this right Social Democracy has denied it. We 
have tried to win the small peasant by showing him that under 
the pressure of the large estates he will be crushed. And yet he 
is not pressed by the large estates, and instead of being ruined 
the small farmers have greatly increased and economically have 
strengthened their position. The small peasant is better off 
to-day than ten or fifteen years ago.” 

Herr Fischer estimates this new middle or lower middle class 
at five and a half millions, counting to it all the peasants, 
tradesmen, artisans, foremen, the minor civil and municipal 
servants, teachers, and other professional men who have during 
the past two decades emerged from the wage-earning class by an 
evolution which is still in full operation to-day. It is not too 
much to say that hitherto this large class has, wilfully or not, — 
been absolutely ignored by Social Democracy, and it is only its 
emphatic assertion of self-consciousness that has compelled the 
Socialists to face and acknowledge the fact that they have all 
along been working on wrong lines. The whole argument and 
appeal of Socialism involves the assumption that the triumph of 
its ideas can only be achieved by the destruction of the small 
middle class. When challenged either to admit or disprove this 
criticism the Socialist has evaded the issue by asserting that 
this class is being destroyed by capitalism; he has pointed to the 
dominant position occupied by large undertakings in industry 
and by large estates in agriculture, in each case at the expense 
of the ‘‘small people,” and has referred his critic to the Erfurt 
party programme of 1891, with its attack upon ‘‘ Gross betrieb”’ in 
every form, taking care not to lay stress upon the fact that this 
programme proposes the entire suppression of all individual 
property, so that in the ‘‘future State” there will be neither 
large owners nor small. 


THE OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM “451 


**The economic development of burgher society,” runs one of 
the paragraphs of this programme, “‘leads with necessity to the 
decay of small undertakings, the basis of which is the workman’s 
possession of his means of production. It divorces the workman 
from the means of production, transforming him into a non- 
possessing proletaire, and the means of production become the 
monopoly of a relatively small number of capitalists and 
large landed proprietors. Hand in hand with this process 
of monopolisation goes the crushing down of the disintegrated 
small undertakings by colossal undertakings on a large scale. 
For the proletariate and the working middle classes—the small 
burghers and peasants—this transformation implies a growing 
uncertainty of existence and increasing misery, need, sub- 
ordination, degradation, and exploitation. 

** Private property in the means of production, which formerly 
was a means of securing to the producer the possession of his 
product, has to-day become the means of dispropriating the 
peasants, artisans, and small traders, and of placing the non- 
workers—capitalists and large landowners—in the possession of 
the workers’ products. Only the conversion of capitalist 
private property in the means of production—land, mines, raw 
materials, tools, machines, means of communication—into social 
property, and the conversion of the production of commodities into 
Socialistic production carried on by society on our behalf, can cause 
the system of large undertakings and the continually increasing 
produetivity of social labour to become for the hitherto exploited 
classes a source of the highest welfare and universally harmonious 
perfection, instead of, as now, a source of misery and oppres- 
sion.”’ 

In this programme there is obviously no place or lot for a 
German middle class, whether of industry, trade, or agriculture. 
It assumes the reduction of society to a dead level of uniformity, 
with no variety of economic condition and circumstance and no 
play for individual enterprise. Above all—for this is the 
weakest part of the Socialist appeal to men as they are—it fails 
to reckon with one of the elementary instincts in human nature, 
the instinct of possession, which is as strong in the smallest 
peasant as in the largest manorial proprietor, as strong in the 
simple handicraftsman who works with his own tools as in the 
manufacturer who owns great factories, as strong in the manual 


452 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


workman who puts his weekly savings into the municipal bank 
as in the financier who lends to Sovereigns and Governments. 

To know how profoundly rooted is the proprietary instinct in the 
old German peasantry, particularly in the slow-moving agricul- 
tural districts of the South, is to understand why the Socialist 
ideals of nationalisation have made no headway whatever 
amongst the farmers, and have as little attraction in that quarter 
to-day as thirty years ago. In industrial Prussia there were in 
1907 50 Socialist votes per 1,000 of the population; in still 
more industrial Saxony there were 92 such votes; in agricultural 
Bavaria there were only 36. 

Even the working classes are beginning to reject the fundamen- 
tal Marxian dogmas, for their own experience has proved them to 
be false. One of the most widely read of Socialist trade unionist 
journals wrote recently: ‘‘It is a notorious fact that our party 
finds itself in an unpleasant situation, which threatens to 
become worse in the immediate future. Its most important 
theoretical maxims have proved either untenable or disputable. 
The impoverishment theory must be abandoned, the theory of an 
economic collapse cannot be maintained, the crisis theory has 
become very questionable, and the same holds good of the theory 
of chronic over-production and other doctrines. Amongst the 
masses of the workers there still survives a comparatively strong 
belief in these doctrines, but it is not found amongst the leaders 
of the party, and still less in the labour Press. The consequence 
is that the party finds itself in the position of a shaky ship, and 
everybody is getting nervous.”’ * 

Now, as ever, the leaders of the Socialist movement rely 
for propagandist success upon two main factors—poverty and 
discontent. It is impossible, however, to ignore, much less to 
stem, the influences which are slowly but surely diminishing the 
sum and degree of poverty, and this hope of Socialism is tacitly 
regarded as lost, though the Marxian fiction of the accumulating 
penury of the masses is still used for controversial purposes. 
But the more the appeal to the poverty of the many lacks 
weight and point, the more is stress laid upon the inordinate 
wealth and luxury of the few; the contrasts which are thus 
caused are represented in the most lurid light; and the 
‘‘proletariate’’ is deliberately incited to discontent and social 

*Der Zimmerer, July, 1906, 


THE OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 453 


disaffection. It is no accident, but part of a calculated 
policy, that amongst the many wise injunctions which the 
more responsible leaders of Socialism give to their followers the 
injunction to thrift is never found. Every German town has a 
flourishing municipal savings bank, and though the working 
classes largely use this institution, it is often against the counsels 
of their party advisers and their newspapers. The providence 
which is naturally most discouraged is that which takes the form 
of investment in house property. Human nature is the same 
everywhere, and the German workman, even though a Socialist, 
is never happier than when he is able to put his savings into a 
small dwelling-house and become an independent owner, free 
from worries from landlords and the anxieties of the rent day. 

The German tradition of the large tenement building makes 
this impossible in most industrial towns, except where ‘‘ public 
utility’ building societies erect single-family or two-family houses, 
and allow the occupiers to purchase them on easy terms, an 
inducement which everywhere proves singularly seductive. An 
interesting exception to the rule is afforded in the few remaining 
towns in which the small house still predominates, and in which, 
as @ consequence, a great many working men own their own 
dwellings. Here, in spite of all that the Socialist theorists have 
been able to do, the attraction of material possession proves 
irresistible to the weaker brethren of the party. These house 
owners continue to be Socialists in spite of their defection from 
principle, they cheerfully pay their contributions into the cam- 
paign chest which finances the war against private property, but 
so long as the ‘‘future State”’ is in the process of making they 
see no reason why they should renounce the subtle satisfaction 
of being landlords on a small scale. It is not too much to say, 
indeed, that the great mass of Social Democrats are not kept 
together by their economic programme, or by any reasoned 
conviction that they would fare better under a republican than 
under a monarchical system. They are profoundly discontented 
with the existing distribution of wealth, but as the inequality 
shifts to their advantage the discontent is lessened, and when 
the working man becomes his own master his faith in radical 
measures of social amelioration is quickly shaken. 

But a further and powerful cause of the temporary eclipse of 
Socialism is the comparative barrenness of its parliamentary 


454 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


activity. Sixty years ago Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 
urged the working classes to work for the attainment of political 
power as a condition of their emancipation. No political party 
in Germany is so strong numerically as the Social Democratic 
party, yet intrinsically none is so weak, and in practical in- 
fluence none is so ineffectual. The reason is that throughout 
the whole of its history the party has been trying to achieve 
positive results by negative means. The Socialists are fond of 
recalling the statement once made by Prince Bismarck, that 
‘If there had been no Social Democrats, and if many people 
had not feared them, the moderate progress which we have 
achieved in social reform would never have been made at all’’ ; * 
yet, in so speaking, Prince Bismarck referred only to the critical 
attitude of Socialism, and to the last he complained that this 
attitude had never been other than negative and obstructive. 

** Social Democracy has achieved nothing positive,” said Prince 
Bulow in the Reichstag on January 20,1907. ‘‘ Even the great 
socio-political laws of the Empire have been passed without its 
help. Whenever a disposition to co-operate in positive work has 
appeared in its ranks, the despotism and revolutionary arrogance 
of the leaders have sought to destroy it.’’ There is much in the 
parliamentary policy of Socialism to justify this severe judgment, 


which indeed is shared by many Socialists themselves. One of © 


the most responsible of Socialist trade unionist journals wrote — 


just before the last election : ‘‘ To-day Social Democracy disposes 
of over three million votes, and has seventy-eight representatives 


in the Reichstag. One would think that such a power as that 


ought to be able to exert some influence in politics, and to follow 


such a policy as would make it impossible for the Government to — 


treat the party, as it does, with indifference.’’ + 

The fact is that Socialism does not know, and has never 
known, what it wants. Challenged to affirm a positive 
State policy, it takes refuge in phrases, or flatly denies the 


ee ee 


obligation to contemplate the practical realisation of its own 
theories. When invited recently for the hundredth time to 
inform the Reichstag what the Socialists would do if they 


had a majority, all Herr Bebel could answer (May 26, 1906) 
was: “If we had a majority we should naturally alter the 


*November 26, 1884. 
¢ Korrespondent fur Deutschlands Buckdrucker, No. 65. 


THE OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 455 


system (of government) according to our ideas and carry on 
a foreign policy whose aim it would be to create everywhere 
the belief that we not only wished for peace but that we 
regarded it as our highest duty to emulate other nations in the 
furtherance of culture.’’ An admirable sentiment, truly, yet one 
which throws no light whatever upon the practical difficulties of 
economic Socialism. ‘‘It is not the duty of Social Democracy,” 
writes another of its champions, ‘‘‘to prescribe the course of its 
own development. It has only to remove the obstacles to that 
development. It has to pave the way for the evolution of 
Socialistic society ; it has not to construct that form of society 
by artificial means.” In other words, society is asked to accept 
a social system which is not, and cannot be, defined; to 
commit itself to a voyage on an unknown sea without rudder 
or compass ; to set out, like the patriarch of old, for a promised 
land, not knowing whither it goes. Under the circumstances, it 
is comforting io know that, even on their own argument, there 
is no certainiy whatever that the economic evolution which 
Socialists are supposed to be facilitating will be Socialistic at 
all. ‘*'The coatention,” writes the Socialist Herr Kolb, in the 
Neue Gesellschaft, ‘‘ that the collapse of the capitalist social order 
lies in the natire of capitalist development, and is a necessity 
which cannot te averted, is only a contention, a hypothesis, 
which cannot le proved by Marxism or anything else, or be 
scientifically established at all.” 

If a reason be sought for this barrenness, which is obvious to 
every outside observer, and is admitted by many Socialists of 
authority, the pdrified dogmas and programmes which lie so 
heavily upon the jarty will once more furnish all the explanation 
that is needful. ‘In the divorce from actuality,’ wrote recently 
Herr R. Calwer in the Sozialistische Monatshefte, ‘‘in the 
retention of outlivel views, which no longer apply to the present 
time, and in purely negative criticism, and thus in the lack of 
practical and positve work, I see the principal causes of the 
defeat of Social Damocracy. In spite of all our organisation 
and agitation we shall ossify if we—the strongest party in 
Germany—do not case to pretend to be able to cure the world 
with ready-made prescriptions.’ To quote another authority of 
equal weight, Dr. KE. Bernstein: ‘‘ The epoch-making theoretical 
works of Marx dats almost exclusively from the ’fifties and 


456 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


sixties of last century, when the labour movement, even in 
England, still suffered continual defeats and was struggling for 
recognition. Since then the most momentous transformations 
have taken place in this as in other spheres of economic life ; 
there has been a great change in the balance of power, and with 
this change new questions have entered the foreground. Yet in- 
stead of grappling with these questions and objectively investi- 
gating their socio-political significance—of course, from the 
standpoint of the working class—the uncompromising, Marxists 
have only heeded them in so far as they appeared to confirm 
inherited doctrines, and for the rest they have eithér ignored 
them or attempted to argue them away.’ * The attitude of the 
intelligent working classes is well reflected by the Socialist 
trade unionist journal which spoke of “‘ the political impotence 
of the party, which can neither go forward nor backward, 
because it is bound hand and foot by a programme which is 
out of touch with the times, and by the perverse p/licy which has 
followed from it.’’ + | 

Only in the little circle which dictates the polify of the party, 
the ‘‘ old gang’”’ which thinks, speaks, and a to-day just as 
forty years ago, does the belief still prevail that all is well with 
the cause, and that nothing in its programme cin be altered for 
the better. How entirely out of touch with th) actual thought 
of the day is the spirit which prevails in tha/ quarter is well 
illustrated by a remark recently made by th¢ party’s official 
organ, the Vorwdrts.t ‘‘A professor,’ it grqely said, ‘‘ who 
would venture to lecture on Marxian poliical economy is 
impossible in a German university.”” One might safely add, 
just as impossible as one who would lectue on astrology or 
Empedoclean cosmogony. 

One of the best-known writers of the Scialist party, Herr 
Parvus, said a short time ago, “‘ Our party prms a rich assort- 
ment of the most various opinions which ar( in contradiction to 
our programme.”’ The words exactly djscribe the present 
position. The one and indivisible Socialijt' party is made up 
of a mass of “‘schools’’ and “‘ directions/’ for the most part 
incoherent and incompatible, and to sone extent mutually 
destructive, and they are only kept togther by 2 common 






* Sozialistische Monatshefte, 1907. 


+ Buchdrucker-Korrespondent. t June, 1907. 


THE OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 457 


antagonism to individualistic capitalism. Officially and before 
the world the party still rests on the theories of Marx and the 
programmes which have been drawn up in accordance with them, 
yet opposed to this superstitious reverence for hoary dogma is an 
energetic body of young revisionists and outspoken rebels, who 
have only refrained from pushing their influence to extremes 
from a well-justified fear lest the new wine of their doctrine 
should rend the old bottles of tradition, to the temporary dis- 
comfiture of the entire Socialist cause. Thus while the party is 
on the whole a Free Trade party with heart and soul, it has able 
writers, like Herr Max Schippel, who are openly Protectionist. 
Again, it is strongly anti-agrarian, yet a Richard Calwer warns 
his colleagues that they can no more hope to repeal the agrarian 
legislation than to reverse the tides, and that as between an 
industrial and an agricultural Germany he greatly prefers 
the latter, and is prepared to vote all the special protective laws 
which the interests of the land may render necessary. The party 
is officially anti-colonial in sentiment, yet its congresses cannot or 
dare not unite on a plain resolution opposing the colonial move- 
ment. It is officially anti-military, yet it fears to appear openly 
hostile to the army, for the masses of the workers would not 
follow it. Even on so fundamental a doctrine as the nationalisa- 
tion of property dangerous reservations are held. A short time 
after the death of Herr Ignaz Auer in 1907 a friend of that able 
and devoted leader of the Socialist party told the story of how 
Auer had endeavoured on one occasion to win him over to the 
cause. Answering that the Marxian doctrine of the centralised 
regulation of production and consumption was enough to prevent 
him from becoming a Socialist, Auer at once rejoined, ‘‘ Cen- 
tralised regulation of fiddlesticks! What sensible man wants 
such a thing?”’ 

A party so divided can never be a serious danger to any State 
or order of society ; and so long as the German nature continues 
as critical as in all ages it has been, so long will the antidote 
to Socialism be provided by itself. In its essence German 
Socialism is destructive, and, happily for the society which it 
seeks to subvert, it is for the present busy destroying, or 
at least transforming, itself. A party of one mind, resolutely 
bent on prosecuting a single aim, might conceivably have 
achieved substantial results, even under the unfavourable 


458 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


conditions created by German political life. But Social — 
Democracy has from the first divided its forces. It takes 

not merely the working classes but the whole world into 
its purview. It seeks not only to reform the economic basis of 

society, but it dogmatises with equal courage and confidence on 

science, art, philosophy, and religion, and in thus aiming at 

doing everything it in fact does nothing. Of all futile spectacles 

offered by German political life none is so strange or so tragic 

as that of a huge party, numbering now three and a quarter 

million adults, engaged year after year, and decade after decade, 

in the vain task of beating the air. 

It is not likely that the uncompromising attitude which has 
doomed the party to barrenness and failure in the past will long 
be allowed to continue, yet the concessions which sooner or later 
will have to be made to the new and more accommodating spirit 
that is asserting itself are concessions which will weaken some of 
the characteristics of Socialism which are most pernicious in the 
eyes of the burgher parties. Herr Bebel can still say : ‘‘ It is not 
a question of whether we achieve this or that; for us the 
principal thing is that we put forward certain claims which no 
other party can put forward ;” but Herr Bebel here speaks for a 
moribund wing of the party, and growing numbers, both of the 
leaders and the followers of Socialism, are disposed to work for 
immediate practical results, instead of staking their energies — 
and hopes upon remote possibilities. There is, of course, a 
radical school which is still as restless and unreasoning as ever, 
regarding all attempts to improve the present position of the 
working classes, by methods which the law approves and in 
which other parties can co-operate, as treachery to the sacred 
cause, and insisting that Socialists shall accept nothing short of) 
the whole loaf of Marxian economics, however long they may 
have to wait for it; but these counsels of despair no longer hold 
the field, for a judicious opportunism is nowadays cecal | 

** We should keep the future before us,”’ says Herr von Vollmar, : 
the Bavarian leader of the party, ‘‘ but not forget the near and 
immediate duty of the moment. Just as natural operations ard 
not wrought by sudden and unconnected upheavals, so social 
systems cannot be dissolved by any arbitrary methods. An 
artificial creation is as little possible as a sudden subversion and 
recommencement; rather, the old grows gradually—far too 





THE OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 459 


gradually for the idealist—but surely into the new. The 
necessary thing is that we should follow a practical everyday 
policy. <A policy that says, ‘If I cannot have my way I won’t play 
with you any more,’ is not the policy of serious men but of 
children. Serious men set themselves ideals, but they realise 
how long is the way to their attainment and how many are the 
obstacles which have to be overcome.” Answering the conten- 
sion of the extremists that under the present social order nothing 
real, helpful, and effective can be done for the people, Herr von 
Vollmar says: ‘‘In my opinion it can, though only, it is true, 
in small measure in comparison with our ideal for the future. 
The history of all modern countries, and especially the history of 
labour legislation, shows this conspicuously. Or must we say 
that all the painfully achieved stages of development, from the 
beginning of the English factory legislation to the present time, 
all the progressive restrictions of the employer’s formerly un- 
limited right of exploitation, are of no value to the workers ? 
The contention is advanced that all laws for the protection of 
labour are absolutely worthless, are of no advantage to the 
workers, nay, are only injurious and obstructive to the movement 
for the emancipation of the people, that the man who troubles 
about small monetary improvements is useless for the revolution, 
and that we should only see the hopelessness of the present and 
for the rest turn our eyes to the longed-for future. But such a 
view implies at bottom nothing but a policy of sterility and 
despair. Its principle may be expressed in the anarchist maxim, 
‘The worse off people are the better!’ ”’ * 

Nor is Herr von Volimar alone in advocating the adoption of 
a policy for the present that shall pave the way for a larger pro- 
gramme for the future. Sentiments of the same kind are to-day 
a commonplace of Socialist literature. Many of the modern 
Socialists—the word modern is used advisedly, for the leaders 
for the most part belong to a period which can only be called pale- 
ontological—recognise that the future of their cause is conditioned 
by the necessity of finding some tolerable modus vivendi with 
the progressive burgher parties. ‘‘What can be done,’’ asks 
one of these, ‘‘so that those sections of the bowrgeoisie whose 
political course runs a long way parallel with our own may at 
least march so long with us as their own interest may require ? 

* “Uber die Aufgaben der deutschen Sozialdermokratie.” 


460 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Let it not be said that if is no business of Social Democrats to 
puzzle their heads about the Liberals. It is a question here of 
what we can do to help German Liberalism to have clear ideas — 


about itself, for this is the problem of our time: to create for — 


Social Democracy middle-class parties capable and worthy of 
being allied with it. Let that be done and we shall have taken 
a great step forward ; if we fail we must accustom ourselves to 
the thought that Social Democracy will have to rely entirely 
upon itself. Then we shall be three million electors against 
eight millions. That need not, indeed, discourage us, yet it 
would be pleasanter, and the German working classes would 
have better promise of success, if, in addition to the three 
millions whom we number, three millions more in the bowrgeovs 
camp might be counted ready to ally themselves with labour in 
a work of resolute political and social reform.’’ To quote only 
one further spokesman of the party, Herr Hue, a member of the 
Reichstag: ‘‘ The cause of the friends of the people will pro- 
gress in the degree that we endeavour to cd-operate with the 
honestly Liberal portion of the bourgeoisie. As the reactionaries 
combine, so let us unite all opponents of reaction in a struggle 
for light and liberty.” 

An alliance between Radicalism and Social Democracy no 
longer seems inconceivable to-day. There was a time, not 
many years ago, when an understanding between these two 
parties was impossible, as much because of want of genuine 
sympathy with social reform in Radical circles as of irreconcilable 
doctrinarianism on the part of Socialism. It is hardly too 
much to say that the entire Socialist movement is a result of the 
neglect of the burgher parties of forty years ago to recognise the 
social evils around them. This neglect was, indeed, palliated in 
some degree by the fact that important national ‘problems were 
then knocking at the door, so that the Governments and legisla- 
tures were unable to concentrate attention upon a homely question 
like that of the condition of the people, yet it has left a legacy 
of troubles behind it. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the 
industrial conditions of those days, bad though they were, were 
comparable with those which prevailed in Lancashire when the 
cotton trade was being built up on the inhuman exploitation of 
child life. German social historians, from Karl Marx forward, 
have made much capital out of the cruelties incidental to the 


THE OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 461 


first beginnings of the English factory system, and a suggestion 
of cant is at times obtrusive in their satisfaction that such things 
were never known in Germany. Looking back, we all agree 
that the conditions were in many respects terrible. It is a 
mistake, however, to take the factory system as it existed in 
England seventy or eighty years ago and view it as an isolated 
and disjointed fact, apart from the general conditions of society 
then prevalent. The overworked and underfed English factory 
operative of the first quarter of the nineteenth century and the 
child slave, who passed almost from the cradle into the workshop, 
were only possible because the entire humanitarian sentiment of 
that time was so little developed: to be judged fairly they must be 
placed side by side with other signs and characteristics of the 
age—the slave trade (only effectively abolished in 1811), the 
old Poor Laws and Poor-Law administration, the unreformed 
prisons, imprisonment for debt, and the like. Placed in the 
social setting of the time, the worst evils of the early factory 
system in England—evils which Germany escaped because its 
industrial era had not opened—though to modern eyes appalling 
enough, do not stand out as something exceptional and abnormal. 

But because the German industrial revolution was of later 
origin than the English, the earlier conditions of labour were in 
entire conflict with the spirit of the time: the contrast was too 
glaring, too flagrant. Hence the German labour party began 
with demands upon society and the State which were extreme 
when compared with those which satisfied the working classes 
and the public conscience of England at a parallel stage of 
industrial development in this country. Unfortunately for 
Germany and for the entire course of its social life, there was at 
that time no hope for the working classes in any existing political 
party or political movement, nor did there exist any intelligent 
and widespread social spirit. Prussia had had a Parliament since 
1851, but it was so engrossed with constitutional and Imperial 
politics that it had no time for domestic reforms. The first 
Imperial Diet, that of the North German Confederation, was 
only established in 1867. In neither legislature was there a 
truly social party. The Conservatives, then as now, were the 
landed party, and their interest in social reform was patriarchal 
and philanthropic rather than statesmanlike; the National 
Liberals were in the main the party of the new industrialists ; 


462 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


while the Radicals were the party of self-help and unreserved 
individualism, insomuch that for years they opposed the intro- 
duction of factory inspection as an unwarrantable interference 
with the relations of capital and labour. Hence it was that the 
new industrial class formed its own party, went its own way, and 
worked out its own schemes of class reformation. 

We have seen that this attitude of isolation has doomed 
the Socialist party to stagnation, and that it is sheer 
discontent with the purely negative results of more than a 
generation of parliamentary efforts which to-day is causing 
conciliatory advances to be made to the constitutional demo- 
cratic groups. Obviously any alliance of the kind, however 
informal, would necessarily presuppose certain concessions on 
both sides—on the side of Radicalism the more open and 
unreserved adoption of a popular and working-class policy, 
on the side of Socialism the abandonment, or at least the 
suspense, of its extremer demands, and especially its fruitless 
and useless crusade against monarchy, which is hollow, 
insincere, and theatrical, and has little real sympathy amongst the 
working classes, and in South Germany is not taken seriously 
at all. Upon all questions of loyalty and patriotism, indeed, the 
entire Socialist party is too commonly judged by the attitude and 
conduct of the more garrulous of its leaders, and as a result it 
is misjudged. ‘‘ The Social Democracy of all other countries,”’ 
said Prince Bulow in the Reichstag on February 26, 1907, 
‘is with few exceptions true to its own people on great 
national questions.” The implication was that the reverse held. 
good in Germany. It must be admitted that the parliamentary 
oratory and the Press of the party often give occasion for un- 
favourable comparisons of this kind, though it would be an easy 
task to cite against every proof of apparent anti-national 
sentiment adducible from those quarters equally or more 
convincing proofs of genuine patriotism. Herr Bebel has 
given utterance to many words of an equivocal kind on this 
subject, yet when at the Bremen congress of the party in 1904 
a delegate proposed that a formal Socialistic agitation should be 
begun amongst the recruits, both he and Herr von Vollmar con- 
demned the resolution, and Herr Bebel declared his ‘‘ confidence . 
that if Germany were ever in danger of attack the Socialists 
would take up arms in defence of the fatherland.’’ So, too, 


THE OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM 463 


while the Stuttgart international congress of Socialists in 1907 
(August 20th) passed a resolution, as long as a speech, against 
militarism, German delegates spoke against it amid the applause 
of their followers. Some of Herr von Vollmar’s words deserve 
quoting as representing the better and more representative spirit 
of German Socialism. Answering the French cosmopolitans he 
said :— 

‘*‘ Let me say what the German Social Democrats will think 
and do. Militarism and war will ever find decisive opponents in 
us. We are ready, as of old, to continue the strife, but we will 
not let the sense of battle be distorted. It is untrue that inter- 
nationalism is anti-nationalism. It is untrue that we have 
no fatherland. I say ‘fatherland’ without any hair-splitting. 
Love of humanity cannot hinder us for a moment from being 
good Germans. Although we vigorously combat the egging on 
of peoples against each other, it is undesirable that nations 
should cease and so form an indistinguishable pot pourri of 
peoples. To some, indeed, the fighting of militarism by the 
education of the masses may seem too slow a method, but from 
any speedier solution only anarchical recipes evolve, which 
are to be condemned on principle.” 

During one of the latest debates in the Reichstag on the 
army estimates (April 24, 1907) the Minister for War, in 
answering Socialist criticism, declared, ‘‘ You deny the necessity 
of the army.” The answer ‘‘No’”’ came in unison from the 
Socialist group. 

In fairness it should also be remembered that the Socialism of 
the South of Germany, like the entire character of the people there, 
is far more moderate and ductile than that of the North, with 
the result that the relationships between the Socialists and the 
other parties and the Governments are in the South almost 
invariably smooth where not actually cordial. Although a 
resolution of the national party declares it to be contrary to 
good principle, and in practice quite unallowable, for Socialists 
to vote a Budget, on the ground that to do so is to endorse 
the existing political system, the Socialist groups in the Diets of 
Bavaria, Wirtemberg, and Baden commit this act of treachery 
with clear consciences. The North German Socialist is perfectly 
willing to recognise the existing order to the extent of using the 
electoral laws; he does his best to win seats and is never 


464 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


slow to claim and occupy the seats won; he loyally accepts 
the forms of the Legislature; he works hard and honestly — 
on Parliamentary Committees ; he freely votes expenditure and — 
introduces measures involving new taxation—all this he does, — 
and regards as justifiable and consistent; yet when it comes — 
to giving final sanction to taxes for which he has made himself 
responsible he moodily withdraws from the sitting, abhorring a 
Budget as an unclean thing. For this attitude, incomprehen- 
sible to the South German Socialist, there is no justification 
whatever in reason or logic: it is solely attributable to the fact 
that once upon a time it was enjoined by a party resolution, 
still unrepealed, and that a principle of action should have been 
affirmed in that solemn manner is conclusive for the stolid 
and phlegmatic Socialist of the North. The attitude would 
be trivial and insignificant were it not for the further evidence 
it affords of the slavedom to phrases and traditions which 
is so fatally characteristic of the Socialist party, and which 
makes many of its methods as ineffectual and unpractical as 
are its measures. 

So, too, the Socialist of the South attaches but an academic 
interest to the republican theories which are terribly serious 
to some of his North German colleagues, since they are laid 
down in the programme. On the birth of a prince to the Grand 
Ducal house of Baden in the spring of 1906 the Socialist — 
deputy for Mannheim, the leader of the party in that State, 
promptly paid a loyal visit of respect to the reigning family, and 
was received with the same cordiality as the oldest member of © 
the aristocracy. In the summer of 1907 the Socialists of the 
Lower House of the Hessian Diet voted an address to their 
Grand Duke, and when the official organ of the party in Berlin 
protested in hysterical language their leader, Dr. David, replied 
that it was necessary to ‘‘discriminate in the treatment of 
the various German princes.” In Wurtemberg and Bavaria the 
attitude of the Socialists towards the reigning houses is no less — 
loyal and decorous; and in the homes of the working class 
it is no uncommon thing for portraits of royal personages and 
Social Democratic leaders to hang side by side. On the other 
hand, it was a South German Minister President who said 
in 1904 in the Diet of his State (Baden) that ‘‘the Socialist 
movement was a legitimate political movement, and he would be 


THE OUTLOOK OF SOCIALISM — 465 


sorry if it had no representation in that assembly.”” When in 
1907 a Social Democratic railway workshop mechanic was 
elected to the Bavarian Lower House his employer, the State, 
continued to pay his wages while he was absent from work 
discharging his legislative duties, though he generally voted 
against the Government. 

What is difficult for outsiders to understand is the fact 
that the very Socialists who protest most energetically against 
any such recognition of the existing political and social order as 
might be implied by voting Budgets are loudest in their com- 
plaints that the constitutions of several of the German States do 
not allow them a representation proportionate to their numbers, 
and most deeply resent the denial to Socialists of official 
positions carrying State authority. In Prussia Socialist Mayors, 
members of Municipal Executives, jurymen, and the like are im- 
possible, not because they are never elected, but because the 
Government refuses to confirm such appointments, and to the 
Socialists their exclusion from offices of the kind is a standing 
grievance. The contention of the Government, supported by legal 
decisions, is that a Social Democratic public official is a contradi- 
tion, for so long as Social Democracy seeks the subversion 
of society and the State such an official could not honestly do 
his duty.* Theoretically the argument is incontrovertible, 
though the fact that it is equally applicable to Socialist 
legislators, soldiers, and even electors and taxpayers, proves of 
how little value is abstract reasoning in practical affairs. 

Upon all such questions of civil qualification the Radical 
groups are in unison with the extreme party of the Leff, 
contending that a little less logic and more knowledge of human 
nature would make for a better feeling on both sides, and that 
the inevitable effect of stamping Socialists as necessarily 
enemies of the State is that it tends to make them so. It would 
be interesting to speculate upon the course which Social 
Democracy might have taken had it at the outset been treated, 


* In 1907 the Chief Administrative Court of Prussia (Oberverwaltungs- 
gericht) decided that a communal president who had become a Social Democrat 
disqualified himself from holding office further under the Disciplinary Law 
of July 21, 1853, which states that ‘An official who violates the duties 
imposed upon him by his office, or by his behaviour, either in his office or out- 
side, shows himself unworthy of the respect, deference, or confidence which 
his profession requires, shall be subject to tha provisions of this law.” 

3), 


466 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


by a generation now passed away, with more understanding and 
more tolerance. When Herr Bebel sat in the North German 
Diet in 1867 he could say, ‘“‘I belong simply to the radical- 
democratic, or, if you like, the people’s party.’’ It is easy to see 
to-day that it would have been worth a king’s ransom to have 
kept the Saxon wood-turner in the channels of constitutional 
agitation, as might once have seemed possible. 

Looking to the immediate future, therefore, it seems less 
* likely that the existing divisions within the Socialist ranks 
upon questions of doctrine and policy will lead to disintegration, 


than that they will be resolved by such modifications in the 


party’s attitude towards questions of practical politics as will 
facilitate action with other groups equally interested in the 
welfare of the people. No renunciation of ultimate aims will be 
required of the idealists of the party, but they will probably see 
the wisdom of joining their ‘‘ realist ’’ colleagues in concentrating 
attention upon reforms realisable in the present, and making 
each of these a starting-point for new effort. 


CHAPTER XXIII 
THE POLISH QUESTION 


Prince Bismarck on the Polish question—Germanism versus Polonism—lIncrease 
of the Polish population in the East of Prussia—Poles in the West— 
Spread of the Polish movement to Silesia—Inconstancy of the Prussian 
Government’s Polish policy—The Poles will not sacrifice their cause to 
their religion—The Polish indictment—The language question—The 
promise of King Frederick William III. of Prussia—Abolition of Polish 
from the schools—The school strikes of 1901 and 1906—The ‘‘ Settle- 
ment ’’ of the Polish provinces—How the Poles have counteracted the 
Government’s endeavours—Activity of the Polish land banks—German 
landowners sell to Polish buyers—The competition for land has resulted 
in excessive prices—Economic results of the settlement scheme—The 
prosperity of the Polish distriots increased—Political failure of the 
scheme—The Poles more numerous and influential than ever—The rise 
of a Polish middle class—The new expropriation law—Attitude of the 
Poles towards the Germans—Intolerance answered by intolerance—The 
Polish political associations—The alleged revolutionary aims of the 
Polish movement. 


EVER since the final partition of the Polish kingdom has 
the Polish question disappeared even temporarily from the 
political calculations of the East European Powers. The signi- 
ficance of the problem for Prussia in particular was to the last 
ene of Prince Bismarck’s gravest reflections, as may be seen 
from various passages in his last published memoirs. 

‘In the Polish question,” he writes, ‘‘ Austria is confronted 
by no such difficulties as for us are indissolubly bound up with 
the re-establishment of Polish independence—difficulties incident 
to the adjustment of the respective claims of Poles and Ger- 
mans in Poland and West Prussia and to the situation of Kast 

Prussia. Our geographical position and the intermixture of 
both nationalities in the Eastern Provinces, including Silesia, 


sompel us to retard, as far as possible, the opening of the Polish 
467 


468 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


question, and even in 1863 made it appear advisable to do our 
best not to facilitate but to obviate the opening of this question 
by Russia.’”’ Again, ‘‘ Galicia is altogether more loosely 
connected with the Austrian monarchy than Posen and West 
Prussia with the Prussian monarchy. The Austrian trans-Car- 
pathian eastern province lies open without natural boundary on 
that side, and Austria would by no means be weakened by its 
abandonment, provided it could find compensation in the basin of 
the Danube for its five or six million Poles and Ruthenes. Plans 
of the sort, but taking the shape of the transference of Roumania 
and the Southern-Slav populations to Austria in exchange for 
Galicia, and the resuscitation of Poland under the sway of an 
archduke, were considered officially and unofficially during the 
Crimean War and in 1863. The Old Prussian provinces are, 
however, separated from Posen and West Prussia by no natural 
boundary, and their abandonment by Prussia would be impos- 
sible. Hence among the preconditions of an offensive alliance 
between Germany and Austria the settlement of the future of 
Poland presents a problem of unusual difficulty.” 

To the last Bismarck saw no possible solution of the problem. 
** Any arrangement,”’ he writes, ‘‘ likely to satisfy Poland in the 
provinces of West Prussia and Posen and even in Silesia is im- 
possible without the breaking up and decomposing of Prussia.”’ 

It is, however, questionable whether the political aspect of the 
Polish problem weighs as seriously with Prussian statesmen to- 
day as the purely racial question whether Germanism or Polonism 
shall ultimately dominate in the eastern part of the monarchy. 
Polish discontent, agitation, avowal of national aspirations— 
these things are perennial and change only in form and degree. 
What has of late startled the whole Germanic population of 
Prussia is the discovery that there has been going on, unobserved 
and almost unsuspected, a growth of Polish influence which has 
already assumed threatening proportions, and has, in fact, in 
certain parts of the Prussian monarchy entirely changed the 
racial equilibrium to the displacement of Germanism—German 


sentiment, culture, ideals, institutions. A certain alarm was 


accordingly caused when a leading economic journal (Conrad’s 
Jahrbiicher der Nationaldkonomie) called attention to the 


fact that ‘‘In many districts of West Prussia, Posen, and . 


Silesia, the Poles form the great majority——as far as 90 per 
esl § ority ase tes pet 


™ 
“SS 


THE POLISH QUESTION 469 


cent.—of the population, while the aggregate number of 
Slavs [in these entire provinces] is about 12 per cent. of the 
whole. The towns of the entire East of Germany were a gene- 
ration ago German to the core. The Polish districts in the Kast 
have preserved their former character, except that, owing to a 
large natural increase and a strong migration of Germans, the 
Slav race has further increased its predominance. But a great 
revolution has gradually set in, and one which in the future will | 
make itself felt with increasing force—the towns in the East are 
being ‘ Polonised.’ A further new and rapidly-growing move- 
ment is the migration of Slav labourers in united bands to the 
industrial districts of the West.” 

Written several years ago, these words exhaust the signifi- 
cance of the Polish awakening still less now than then, fora host 
of independent facts might be cited in corroboration. It is not 
merely that the Poles have strengthened their position in the 
traditional strongholds of the race ; they are conquering districts 
which have immemorially been occupied exclusively by Germans. 
In 1860 there was not a single Polish workman in the industrial 
districts of Westphalia and the Lower Rhine: now there are 
some 200,000 Poles of all ages there. There are twenty col- 
lieries employing more Poles than Germans, and in some cases 
the Poles form 70 per cent. of the whole. Nearly ten years ago 
a leading Polish Deputy, criticising the Settlement Bill, soon to 
be referred to, prophesied in the Prussian Lower House: ‘‘ The 
consequences of this law will be that the Polish labourers will 
be compelled to migrate—they will either cross the ocean or they 
will flock to the large towns.’’ Whatever be the cause, the pre- 
diction itself has proved correct: a very considerable exodus of 
population has taken place, but the movement has been a 
migration, not an emigration. Polish labourers have left their 
native provinces by the ten thousand and have supplanted 
German labourers on their own ground. Hence it came about 
that at a time of depression several years ago a Prussian Deputy 
made the serious appeal to the Government, in its imputed 
capacity of social conciliator: “ Should workpeople have to be 
discharged in Westphalia and on the Lower Rhine the Govern- 
ment would earn gratitude if it used its influence to induce the 
employers to get rid of the Poles first.” 

Almost equally remarkable is the strong footing which the 


ao > 
Coe 


470 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Poles have obtained in Silesia, which never had part or lot in — 


| 


the old kingdom of Poland, though it is just possible that their — 


intrinsic racial influence here is artificially increased owing to 


the sympathy and support which they receive from the German — 


Ultramontanes, for when it is a question of Ultramontanism 
versus Protestantism, the German Roman Catholic is apt to 
forget his nationality, and to cast in his lot at the polls with 
candidates who, if they could, would be only too ready to undo 
the Imperial unification which was wrought by ‘‘ blood and iron”’ 
nearly forty years ago.* Save to the Pan-Germanist, who 
feeds his patriotic soul upon the empty cry of ‘‘ Germany for the 
Germans,’ without understanding exactly what he means by it, 
the strength of the Polish influence would be a matter of in- 
difference were that influence to be reckoned amongst the 


centripetal forces in national life which make for political unity. — 


Notoriously the opposite is the fact. Whatever be the pro- 
fessions, whatever the justification and the excuse, Polonism 
spells anti-Prussianism, and because anti-Prussian it is also 
anti-German, and by no exaggeration of charity can it, under 
present circumstances, be regarded as a source of strength to 
either Monarchy or Empire. 

No one can reasonably doubt that the inconstancy of the 
Government in the treatment of the Polish population and of 
Polish movements is in part responsible for the present difficulty 
of the problem. Instead of pursuing a policy unwaveringly firm, 
yet not less scrupulously fair and just, a policy which, while 
making due statesmanlike allowance for national sentiment, 
aimed at enlisting this sentiment in the cause of the wider 
nationalism, Prussian rulers have only been consistent in incon- 
sistency, for they have throughout vacillated between yielding 
suavity and unbending rigour. And so, while the former policy 
has only provoked mistrust and contumely, the latter has won 
for its authors, as was inevitable, hostility and hatred. Resent- 


ment is an emotion of longer life than gratitude ; hence when the | 
Pole sets the good things which have been done for him against 


those which have mortally wounded his pride and needlessly — 


provoked his anger, it is inevitable that he should decide that 


* Hence the significance of the remark made by the Clerical Volkszeitung 
of Cologne apropos of Prussia’s ‘‘ unhappy Polish policy”: ‘‘ Not only is the 


antagonism between German and Slav revived, but also that between — 


Catholic and Protestant—too big a handful, surely, at one time.” 


{fe 
KFS, 


oe rR 


THE POLISH QUESTION 471 


the balance remains overwhelmingly with the latter, and should 
think and feel and act accordingly. And to-day, as for the last 
hundred years, there still goes on between the Prussian Govern- 
ment and its administrative officials in the Polish districts, on 
the one hand, and the Polish people on the other, an unceasing 
feud, an unchanging contest for ascendancy, maintained with 
equal resolution on both sides, the one seeking to assert German 
influence, ideas, culture, language, the other tenaciously, 
unwearyingly, and desperately resisting the onslaught with all 
the strength and bitterness which pride of race and of ave 
can generate. 

Nor, Roman Catholics though the Poles are almost to a man, 
has it proved possible to abate this war of races by the friendly 
interposition of the ecclesiastical arm. The Government may 
make concordat after concordat with the Papal See, removing 
successive difficulties between Germanism and Ultramontanism, 
but by mutual consent the Polish question is regarded as beyond 
the sphere of negotiation. On the occasion of a visit to Gnesen 
in August, 1904, the Emperor appealed to the Poles in the 
name of their religion to rally to the German cause. ‘‘ Upon 
the occasion of my last visit to the Vatican’’ (May 4, 1903), he 
said, ‘the venerable Leo XIII., in taking leave of me, clasped 
me by both hands and, Protestant though I am, he gave me his 
blessing with this pledge: ‘In the name of all Catholics who 
are your subjects, of whatever race and of every class, I vow and 
promise to your Majesty that they will ever be loyal subjects of 
the German Emperor and of the King of Prussia.’ Yours it 
will be to make good the noble words of the great and venerable 
priest, that after his death faith may not be broken with the 
German Emperor.’ The impressive appeal found responsive 
echo in the breasts of German Catholics, but it left the Polish 
Catholics cold. 

The Poles evince a pathetic attachment to the Roman 
Church, for which they would make any possible material — 
sacrifice, but in the matter of national aspirations nothing is 
asked from them, for nothing could be given. To urge them 
to a formal acceptance of Prussian sovereignty would be to urge 
them to cease to be Poles. Poles they are and Poles they 
choose to remain—not Prussians, not Germans, not Imperialists, 
nor yet Monarchists, save in remembrance of the monarchy 


a 





472 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


which is no more, or in anticipation of the monarchy which they 
hope and pray may yet exist again. For even in the deepest 
depth of national humiliation and distress the Pole has never 
wavered in his conviction that,in the words of his beloved 


song, ‘‘ Poland is yet not lost.’’ For him Kosciuszko’s tragic 


lament, ‘‘ Finis Poloniw,’’ is an unspoken word. 

If we would understand the perpetual friction which exists 
between the Prussian ruling classes and the Poles it is necessary 
to inquire into the character and extent of the grievances which 
to-day keep the ancient feud alive. On the occasion of one of 
the often recurring debates on this subject in the Prussian Lower 
House Dr. Jazdzewski formulated the following charges :— 

‘“No Pole can plead his own cause before the courts in his 
mother-tongue, and should he wish to employ it before the 
administrative authorities he is not heard; 

‘‘Immemorial names, with a millennium of history behind 
them, are summarily abolished at the instance of the sub- 
prefects, the Government and the Ministry ; 

‘‘Family names are distorted by the authorities ; 

‘¢ Every class meeting is held under police surveillance, and 
open-air meetings are prohibited altogether ; 

‘‘ Polish theatrical performances are for the most part 
forbidden or stopped.” 

Assuming, and in fairness it should be assumed, that in 
advancing these charges the Polish leader unduly generalised 
from particular instances, there is yet sufficient foundation for 
them to explain the deep-rooted feeling of hatred and resent- 
ment which the Poles entertain towards the ruling nation. The 
language grievance, which lies at the root of all these charges, 
is one which falls on the Poles with peculiar severity, because it 
is the grievance which is most universal and which touches them 
in the most susceptible part of their being, wounding alike 
national, domestic, and religious sentiment. Historically the 
Poles unquestionably have right on their side, just as from 
the national standpoint they have justice, in demanding that 
their language shall be not merely tolerated but protected. On 
the acquisition of the Polish provinces by Prussia, King 
Frederick William III., ‘“‘on his kingly word,” promised ‘‘ on 
behalf of himself and his successors ’’ freedom of religion and 


the maintenance of the Polish language in administration, in 


| 
| 
| 





oa. x 
iia) 
THE POLISH QUESTION \473_/ 


fhe law courts, and in the schools. Gradually, however, the | 
lingual right has been withdrawn, and at the present time the 
Polish language enjoys no special tolerance—indeed, no tolerance 
at all—in any department of civil life. It is literally true that, 
alike in pleading for justice before the judicial tribunals and in 
public intercourse one with another, the Poles are no longer 
permitted to employ the tongue which is natural to the expres- 
sion of their thoughts, and the hardship is keenly felt. Not long 
ago a meeting of Polish electors was called at Halle in order to 
hear the political issues of the day explained in their mother- 
speech by Polish Deputies, but the police authorities, absolutely 
without legal right, required the use of German. The require- 
ment had of necessity to be obeyed, with the result that the 
addresses given were incomprehensible to most of the hearers— 
a singularly ingenious way of ensuring the intelligent exercise of 
the franchise. al: 
On behalf of the Prussian Government it is contended that 
there is constitutional justification for the invasion and ultimate 
cancelling of Polish ‘‘ particular’ lingual rights. Granting that 
at the time of the partition special franchises were promised to 
the inhabitants of the appropriated territories—franchises which 
were to include even ‘‘ national representation and institutions ”’ 
long before they were thought of as suited to the rest of the 
Prussian monarchy—it is pointed out that half a century ago 
the rights of King and people underwent a complete change, in 
that they ceased to be regulated by tacit and unwritten agree- 
ment and were put down in black and white in the form of a 
political constitution. It is, therefore, argued that the Prussian 
constitution of 1851 must be regarded as superseding all pre- 
existing political arrangements, hence that by accepting that 
document the Poles forfeited all right of appeal to earlier 
promises and guarantees. While, however, such an argument 
may be capable of satisfying the official conscience, it fails to 
remove the objection of the Poles that the suppression of their 
language is a blow aimed at the race and at the sanctities of 
hearth and home. Still less does it explain away the breach of 
the provision of the Prussian Constitution which expressly 
‘affirms that ‘‘ All Prussians are equal before the law.” 
The abolition of Polish from the schools came last of all, and 
with it the cup of exasperation may be said to have been filled, 


474 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Divided counsels long held the hand of the Prussian Minister of | 
Education before the fateful step was taken. Up to 1878 all \ 
Polish children were instructed in the language of their parents. 
In that year the Government decreed that only German should 
be taught in the elementary schools, though an exception was 
made for religious teaching. This unmerited blow at national 
sentiment caused the Polish peasantry, which had hitherto stood 
aloof from the anti-Prussian movement, to join hands with the 
rest of the race. 

A more serious aggressive move was made in 1883, when 
an order was issued by the provincial Government of Posen 
requiring that in all urban elementary and private schools 
of the town of Posen, but in the elementary schools only in the 
other towns of the province, religious instruction should be im- 
parted in the German language if at least half the scholars in 
attendance were of German birth. The then Minister of Educa- 
tion, Dr. von Gossler, disapproved of the order, as did the 
Prussian House of Deputies of that day, and it was rescinded. 
Count Zedlitz, the successor of Dr. von Gossler, maintained the 
same attitude, and under his régime the principle of imparting 
religious teaching in the language of the parents and the home 
was consistently upheld throughout Polish Prussia. It was a 
later Minister, Dr. Studt, who ventured to reverse this principle, 
justifying his action by considerations of State policy—the 
awkwardness of a bi-lingual system of education, and still more 
the persistent efforts of the Poles to make their privileged 
position a means: of racial isolation. His decision still holds 
good, and in view of recent Ministerial declarations it is not 
likely that this part of the Government’s Polish policy will, for 
the present at least, be reconsidered, in spite of the bitterness 
which it has created. ‘To make matters worse, a Ministerial 
decree of April 12, 1899, required teachers to disuse Polish in 
the family circle. These teachers are, of course, Germans, 
imported from other parts of the kingdom, who have married 
Polish wives. 

The famous ‘‘ school strikes’ of 1906—a fitting counterpart 
to the equally memorable Wreschen school scandals of 1901— 
came as a reminder of the depth of aggravation caused by the 
language prohibition. These strikes began in the autumn of 
1906 and lasted into the following spring. They originated in 


THE POLISH QUESTION 475 


the diocese of Posen, but spread to other parts of the Polish 
enclave and even to Breslau. In the diocese of Posen alone 
40,000 children ‘‘struck.’’ The rebellion began with a refusal 
to answer questions in German, and it ended in abstention from 
school altogether. Not only elementary schools but gymnasia 
joined in the movement. A Prussian educational journal thus 
summarised the judicial consequences of these organised re- 
bellions against the school authorities :— 

‘Two hundred and eighty communal presidents and justices 
have been cashiered, and 120 Polish members of school com- 
mittees, including 65 clergymen, have been relieved of their 
positions. For incitements to school strikes 35 priests have 
been sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment in the ageregate, 
and the fines inflicted upon them have amounted to £817, while 
proceedings are still pending against 20 clergymen. The fines 
inflicted upon Polish editors amount to £972, and the terms 
of imprisonment to 45 months. Further, about 1,450 parents 
have been fined £900 for the non-attendance of their children 
at school. Other private persons, being neither priests nor 
editors, have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment amount- 
ing to six and a half years for indictable offences connected with 
the school strikes. In addition to the heavy legal costs the 
strikes have cost the persons concerned some £1,550 and twelve 
years of imprisonment.” 

How the Poles feel on this language question cannot be better 
described than by the following extract from a letter penned by 
one of the most prominent members of the Polish aristocracy :— 

‘The Polish language has been banished from the school, 
from the administration, and all public institutions. So far has 
the embargo gone that religious teaching is no longer imparted 
to the children of the communal schools in their mother-tongue 
but in German, a language which they but little understand. 
Gratuitous private instruction in the Polish language is punished 
by fine or imprisonment. Itis required of teachers and officials 
of Polish nationality that they shall only speak German in the 
family circle, and they are often removed from their native districts 
to distant parts of the country so that their Germanisation may be 
the better facilitated. . . . How far the antagonism to the Polish 
national sentiment has gone may be judged from the fact that 
_ not long ago police visits were made to the houses of Polish 


476 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


scholars attending the upper classes of higher schools and 
search made for Polish books of alleged ‘ propagandist’ ten- 
dency. Verses and other literature quite innocent in character 
were confiscated and the scholars to whom they belonged were 
put in prison. Who is to blame in such a case, and who is the 
real ‘agitator’? Surely not the scholar, who, refused the 
opportunity of learning his mother-tongue and the literature 
and history of his country in school, endeavours to acquire that 
knowledge in his spare time at home. Every right-loving person 
must regard such treatment of loyal citizens as wrong and 
unjustifiable, and allow that it furnishes just cause for extreme 
embitterment.” 

Nor is the abolition of the Polish language as far as the more 
zealous advocates of Germanism would go. There are those 
who seriously propose to close the rural schools of the Polish 
provinces entirely to teachers of Polish nationality, not because 
they do not understand German, but because, though teaching 
in the German language, they ‘‘feel Polish’’ and cannot 
sufficiently identify themselves with the sentiments and ideals 
of the ruling class. 

But the measure of repression which has embittered the Poles 
more than any other, and that without effecting the end its 
authors had in view, is the ‘‘ colonisation ’’ of Polish districts 
with German settlers which has now been going on for two 
decades. This measure dates from 1886, and was one of several 
heroic efforts made by Prince Bismarck to cope with social prob- 
lems on principles which required the assumption that political 
economy had definitely been banished to the planet Mars. It 
was a copy of the ‘inner colonisation ’’ policy pursued by the 
Great Elector, King Frederick William I., and Frederick the 
Great, and like all copies inferior to the original, Bismarck 
first contemplated the compulsory expropriation of the Polish 
landowners, with a view to a radical clearance of the disaffected 
elements, and he expressed his willingness to expend fifteen 
million pounds upon such a measure, but public opinion was not 
behind him and he decided to try voluntary means. 

The sum of five millions was set apart in 1886 for the purchase 
of Polish estates in the provinces of Posen and West Prussia, with 
a view to their disintegration and re-sale to German settlers of 
unquestioned national and political integrity. Not only the initial 


7 


THE POLISH QUESTION 477 


five million pounds, but an additional twelve and a half millions 
voted later, have been spent in the way intended, but without 
producing any visible impression upon the difficulties which this 
outlay of money was expected to solve. It is true that a certain 
number of German farmers have been drawn to the east of the 
monarchy from all parts of the Empire, but the new element of 
Germanism which has thus been introduced into the Slav pro- 
vinces bears no appreciable proportion to that of Polonism, 
which now as before remains overwhelmingly preponderant and 
still gives tone to the entire life and thought of that part of 
Prussia. Moreover, the dispersion of the settlement money has 
afforded not a few impecunious Polish landowners timely relief 
under circumstances which had become very embarrassing. 
Directly any of these proprietors offered their encumbered 
estates for sale, the Land Commission rushed at them with 
tempting offers which cut out altogether the normal buyer and 
speculator. Worse still for the operation of the Government’s 
plan, many of these landowners, after blandly disposing of their 
estates at inflated prices, expended the proceeds in purchasing 
other estates on more advantageous terms, which estates they 
divided out in small holdings and placed in the hands of 
Polish tenants, thus effectively rendering nugatory the State’s 
Germanising endeavours. 

From the first the Poles have striven to defeat the Govern- 
ment on its own ground. When the Settlement Bill of 1886 
was passed they answered the challenge by establishing a large 
Co-operative Land Bank, the capital being provided partly by 
co-operative societies and partly by Polish tradespeople and 
industrialists of the towns. The irony of the situation was 
shown when the Government was compelled to extend to this 
Land Bank the privileges which can be claimed by such institu- 
‘tions in virtue of its own law for the promotion of peasant 
proprietors (the Rentengiitergesetz), such privileges ineluding 
the use of State credit at 34 per cent., terms lower than could 
be obtained in the open market. The result was that by the 
end of the year 1896 the Poles had created exactly as many 
proprietors of Polish nationality as the Colonisation Commission 
had of German, and that in a shorter time. Other Land Banks 
were established later, and they have to-day a capital of 
_ £800,000, which is kept busily circulating while a large 


478 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


amount of capital in the hands of private firms is employed 
in buying back from German proprietors as much land as the 
Government succeeds in acquiring from the Poles. 

3Throughout it has been a game of stroke and counterstroke. 
Thus in 1904 the Prussian Minister of Finance issued a rescript 
requiring all officials of public authorities to withdraw from 
Polish banks. The Poles promptly answered by withdrawing 
their savings from all the district savings banks and the German 
co-operative banks, and for the future traded with their own 
banks exclusively. The balance of advantage has on the whole 
been with the Poles, who to-day hold more land in the “‘ settled ”’ 
provinces than twenty years ago. During the ten years 1896 
to 1906 the Germans lost to the Poles 125,000 acres, equal to 
1 per cent. of the area of the two provinces. The explanation 
is that since 1898 the Land Commission has had to buy almost 
solely from German proprietors. 

It is a sore point with the Government that so many German 
proprietors are willing to sell to the Poles if by so doing they can 
obtain a higher price than that offered by the Land Commission. 
Announcements like the following frequently occur in the news- 
papers circulating in the east of the monarchy: ‘‘ The estate of 
X (a German landowner) at Y, containing 1,200 Prussian 
morgen (940 acres), has been sold for £12,000 to the Pole Z. 
This is the second estate in this neighbourhood which has lately 
passed into Polish hands. The Poles are negotiating for two 
other estates adjacent.’’ Not long ago a Polish estate belonging 
to a member of the Agrarian League was sold to the Polish 
Allotment Bank for £60,000. For the same estate the Settle- 
ment Board offered some time before £47,500, which was regarded — 
as a fair price. Naturally the defection of so many German 
landowners is a sore point with those of their colleagues who 
believe that the presence of the Poles in their ancestral home is — 
a danger to the State, and to them the Emperor addressed a 
pointed admonition when visiting Gnesen in August, 1904. 
‘‘The German,” he said, ‘‘ who without justification sells his 
property in the East sins against his fatherland; whatever 
his class and age, his duty is to remain here. I fancy that a 
certain struggle between heart and reason goes on in the 
German’s breast. If a man is in a position to make a good — 
bargain the heart says, ‘Now retire, withdraw, go to the far i 


THE POLISH QUESTION 479 


West, where all is pleasant.’ But reason must then come in 
and say, ‘ Duty first and pleasure after.’ To labour here in the 
East is a duty to the Fatherland and to Germanism, and just 
as the sentry may not leave his post, so Germans should not 
desert the Kast.’’ But German landowners find it difficult to 
view matters in this light, and weariness of the land and the 
prospect of selling out well induce many of their number not 
merely to withdraw but deliberately to make way for Poles. In 
1907 such a landed proprietor in West Prussia sold his estate 
to a Polish bank for £12,500 more than the Land Commission 
was prepared to pay. A son-in-law, a lieutenant in a Silesian 
garrison, was immediately afterwards given ‘‘ indefinite leave,”’ 
and the meaning of the measure was clearly understood. 

The result of this competition for land has been to advance 
its market value to an unconscionable extent. When the Land 
Commission began its work it was able to buy as much land as 
it wished in West Prussia at £10 per acre and in Posen at £12. 
Those low prices did not long continue, and since the competi- 
tion of Polish buyers has become keener, prices at least 50 per 
cent. higher have for some years had to be paid, while latterly, 
owing to the necessity of buying in a rising market, the Com- 
mission has given more than £24 per acre for land which twenty 
years ago cost just one-half. In West Prussia the average price 
per hectare (24 acres) increased from £26 3s. in 1886 to 
£30 9s. in 1895, to £41 1s. in 1900, and to £50 4s. in 1905. 
In Posen the average price per hectare increased from £30 1s. 
in 1886 to £35 2s. in 1890, to £40 11s. in 1900, and to 
£61 18s. in 1905. In some districts of Posen the increase has 
been threefold. 

In judging the work that has been done by the Settlement 
Board a clear distinction should be made between the political 
and the economic aspect of the question. If the purpose had 
simply been the economic reawakening of the Polish Kast there 
would be much to praise and to admire in the results that have 
been achieved, for the settled districts have been entirely trans- 
formed and raised to a level of prosperity never known before. 
From this standpoint the settlement project is immensely 
interesting. Certainly nothing exactly like it has been tried 
in Germany before. During the twenty years the settlement 
experiment has been in progress the Land Commission has 


480 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


purchased 158 estates and 36 smaller peasant properties in the 
province of West Prussia, with an aggregate area of 222,440 
acres, and in the province of Posen 359 estates and 251 peasant 
properties, with an area of 518,367 acres, making a total area 
bought, and for the most part settled, of 740,807 acres, of which 
only a third was formerly in Polish hands. For this land the 
Government has paid £12,516,000, at an average price per acre 
of £15 7s. in the province of West Prussia, and one of £17 11s. 
per acre in Posen. The following is a summary of the work 
done :— 


Number of settlers’ families established in Polish districts ... 11,957 


», Of labourers’ families similarly settled ah me 458 
Total number of persons represented above... eos «- 81,000 
Number of new villages founded... aa «ad age oles 315 

. of churches built... ane ose ape ont a 35 

sy of chapels built ... Ee ae sae due pe 23 

» Of parsonage farmscreated ... 8 ase ea 37 

#3 of farm schools created ... me Sai vik ssid 271 

“i of farm-school houses built ... nae ates ak vf 

»» Of buildings provided for industrial purposes and 

agricultural experimental stations eee ese 270 


Cost of the above buildings, £425,000. 
Amount of land drained, 115,875 acres. 


Of the 11,957 peasant families who have been settled, 2,926, 
or 24°4 per cent., already lived in the two settled provinces, - 
4,925, or 41 per cent., came from other parts of Prussia, 1,671, or 
14 per cent., came from other German States, and 2,435, or 20°3 
per cent., were returned German families from Russia. It is 
noteworthy that 11,464 families are Roman Catholic and 4389 
Protestant. Little systematic attempt has been made as yet to 
settle labourers on the land: the vast majority of the settlers 
are peasants, each with his own holding of from 25 to 50 acres, 
which he can work with the help of his family or that of a single 
labourer. The best tenants are found to be those who come 
from West and South-West Germany; it is they who have 
specially built up the grazing industry which now forms so 
important a source of prosperity in the settled provinces. 

The Board not only creates new villages and communes: it 
endows them with funds. As a rule 5 per cent. of the value — 
of the holdings in a newly-created commune is set aside as a 
sort of dowry for the commune. The Board also establishes 


THE POLISH QUESTION 481 


agricultural associations, loan and savings banks, productive 
co-operative societies, and other organisations and agencies for 
the benefit of the farmers. It has been estimated that the 
return on the money expended by the State, without counting 
the costs of administration, has been 2 per cent., though that 
in all probability is a very optimistic estimate. 

The last published Government report on the work of the 
Settlement Board stated :— 

“The settled provinces, economically backward and poor in 
resources, have been fertilised by the stream of money which 
has been caused directly and indirectly by the colonisation 
measures and the confidence shown by the other parts of the 
country in the Government’s policy, begun in 1886, and 
continued systematically ever since. They have thus not only 
been able to pass successfully through the ordeal of the past 
two decades, so trying to agriculture, without suffering a relapse, 
but have brought the development of the land to a high level, so 
that its effects have favourably influenced industrial life. In the 
rapidity with which this result has been attained they have 
surpassed the other Kastern provinces, and so have made up for 
the lost ground. Waste lands and inferior land already in use 
have been brought into good cultivation on an extensive scale 
by the settlement scheme. The crops have in the course of a 
decade been increased by more than one-half, and great progress 
has been made in the working of the soil and in manuring. In 
these matters the settled districts everywhere take the lead. 
The development of cattle grazing has been extraordinary. In 
consequence of the settlement there are twice as many horses 
on the same area, thrice as many cattle, and ten times as many 
pigs. In this respect the settlements surpass the old peasant 
communes of West Prussia and Posen. There has been the 
same progress in the breeding of fowls and in fruit-growing. 
Agricultural education and co-operation have also been pro- 
moted. A further result has been a great extension of traffic 
in all parts of the settled provinces, and especially in the 
districts most strongly colonised. The railway goods traffic 
has doubled during the last ten years; the postal traffic has 
kept pace with it; and the means of communication have been 
greatly improved. In consequence of the more profitable use of 
the soil caused by the settlement scheme, a far larger population 


32 


482 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


is fed by the provinces; while on the former estates there 
were on an average 80 persons to the square kilometre there 
are now 50, and these 50, who have taken the place of Polish 
labourers and foreign itinerant labourers, belong for the most 
part to the independent, patriotic, and loyal strata of the 
population.” | 

There is no reason to under-estimate the purely economic 
results which have thus been attained. They may not have 
been realised on sound commercial principles, for a political 
purpose has admittedly been the underlying motive, yet the 
gain to the settled provinces has been solid and substantial. 
Against these results, however, must be placed the increased 
disaffection of the displanted Poles and the aggravation of the 
entire Polish problem both in Prussia and in the adjoining 
countries, and these are political liabilities of the first order 
which weigh heavily against the economic assets of the colonisa- 
tion policy. The Poles, whether nobles, peasants, or labourers, 
resent the Government’s attempt to supplant them as a species 
of denationalisation which shows their rulers to be still imbued 
with the spirit that decreed the original partition of the Polish 
monarchy. LEither, they argue, they are subjects of the Prus- 
sian Crown, in which case the adoption of legal measures to 
decimate them, and destroy their legitimate influence in their 
traditional home, is subversive of every principle of State and — 
civil justice, or they are aliens, an assumption which, to do them 
justice, they much prefer, in which case the proper thing for 
Prussia to do is to wash its hands of the Slav population alto- 
gether, leaving it to work out its own national salvation. It is 
furthermore felt as a grievance that the funds which are used 
for the expropriation of the Poles are drawn out of taxation to 
which the victims of this policy of repression contribute equally 
with the rest of the population—in other words, that, so far as 
the Government can compass its purpose, the Poles are being 
made their own executioners. 

The purely economic arguments against the scheme take, 
from the Polish standpoint, a secondary place, though weighty 
enough in themselves. The system of peasant proprietary which 
is being set up in the place of the large estates is an artificial 
system. It is true that there has of late years been a great 
improvement in the men who have been accepted as settlers, yet 


THE POLISH QUESTION 483 


even now it is held that the class of cultivators attracted to the 
Polish provinces are not, as a rule, the typical, hardy, plodding 
sons of the soil who form the backbone of agriculture everywhere, 
but men half rural, half urban, who have failed—or, at any rate, 
have not succeeded—at farming elsewhere, and, tempted by the 
liberal terms offered, are not averse to making a fresh experiment 
under entirely novel conditions, knowing that there will be 
behind them a benevolent Government, with a predisposition 
for coddling its protégés, since its policy and its credit are both 
bound up in their success. In truth, the inducements to life 
in the Polish districts are not strong enough for men of the 
right sort. In itself the Polish sphere of influence is not 
attractive to genuine peasants, who can always make a better 
livelihood in the western part of the country, when equal 
facilities for getting upon the land exist. Not only is the 
atmosphere unfriendly—and all the more so since the Govern- 
ment by its settlement scheme set German and Pole anew by 
the ears—but the entire economic condition of the country is 
backward, and all the profitable markets are distant or otherwise 
difficult of access; for the fact that in the towns the Poles have 
great, and often controlling, power does not help the German 
settlers to obtain a ready sale for their produce. Added to this, 
the Polish labourers upon whom the German farmer must depend 
are of a low class, and their inefficiency is but little compatible 
with a prosperous and progressive agriculture. 

But the most pertinent objection to the colonisation scheme is 
the fact that it has failed entirely to effect the object in view. 
That object was the breaking down of the Slav ascendancy in 
its stronghold in the East of Prussia and the permeation of the 
Polish districts by a Germanic spirit and atmosphere. Not the 
most convinced friend of the scheme would pretend that this end 
has been accomplished. The Government’s latest report on the 
work of the Land Commission says frankly: ‘‘ The significance 
of the results achieved lies less in any real progress of Germanism 
than in the fact that its decline has at last been checked and 
that Polonism now shows signs of retreat.’’ The language is not 
enthusiastic, yet it overstates rather than understates the facts; 
for while the German population of the settled provinces has 
- increased by a few thousands, the Poles are still as much as ever 
in possession, and both socially and economically the vitality and 


484 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


power of resistance of Polonism have vastly increased. The same 
report admits :— 

‘‘Polonism during the last twenty years has gained both 
economically and in inner power. Its greater strength is in part 
a direct result of the German settlement. For this has been to 
the advantage of the Polish proprietors in increasing prices, so 
improving their credit, while by the stimulus it has given to the 
entire economic life of the provinces it has carried the Polish 
townsman forward as well. So long as the colonisation movement 
continues and Germanism in that way grows more quickly than 
Polonism in the towns it embraces, this Polish development will 
involve no real danger. Should the stream of German immi- 
erants cease, however, the Polish danger will become more 
serious than ever.” 

Even tried by the mechanical test of numbers the settlement 
scheme has failed. In spite of ap enormous immigration to the 
western districts of Prussia, the Poles have strengthened their 
position. The number of Poles per 1,000 of the population was 
as follows in the Government districts named at the dates 
stated :— 


Danzig (West Prussia) ...... 
Marienwerder (West Prussia) 
PORE {POSOM), ines Lonadecnonacss 
Bromberg (Posen) ..2... cee... 





It will be seen that only in one district of West Prussia has 
there been a decline, and in that district Polonism was never 
very strong. The census of 1905 showed that during the 
preceding five years the Germans in the entire province of 
Posen had increased by 48,000, equal to 5°97 per cent., and the 
Poles by 59,000, equal to 5°08 per cent., giving the Germans a 
higher relative increase of 0°89 per cent. Even so, the Polish 
population stood in 1905 at 61°21 per cent. of the whole. But 
the decline of Polonism was entirely due to migration to the 
industrial districts of the West, and had nothing to do with 
the settlement scheme; moreover, the migrated Poles will in 
time return to their native districts, more influential because 


THE POLISH QUESTION 485 


more prosperous and more enlightened than when they left. 
During the five years 1900-1905 no fewer than 98,258 in- 
habitants of the province of Posen migrated, and the vast 
majority were Poles. 

Not long ago Prince Bulow stated in a moment of optimism 
that it was safe for any one to ‘‘ put his money on the racehorse 
of Polish policy.” But it is a characteristic of Prince Bilow, 
and perhaps the characteristic is one of the chief explanations of 
his success as a statesman, that he has never taken difficulties 
tragically. A leading journal responded to his challenge in a 
different mood. ‘‘ The present Polish policy,” it said, ‘‘ began 
in the year 1886, and the fruit which we have reaped so far from 
the seed then sown has been a crop of weeds. When Germanism 
is receding more and more, when Upper Silesia is falling into 
the hands of the Radical-Polish party, when in spite of all 
settlements in Posen and West Prussia the net result is a loss 
of German properties to the Poles to the extent of 125,000 acres, 
can it still be expected that we should have confidence and wait 
patiently for ‘fruits’? No, we can join no pans of jubilation 
on this score.”’ 

But the Prussian Government implicitly admitted failure 
by the proposal made towards the close of the year 1907 to 
compulsorily expropriate Polish proprietors in the two settled 
provinces where land cannot be acquired by voluntary contract. 
The Polish owners henceforth are not to be allowed to sell if 
they like, but they must sell if the Government likes, and not 
only so, but the buyer, the Land Commission, is to be able to 
fix the price. ‘‘ We intend,’ said Prince Bulow, ‘‘ that the 
Polish landed proprietors shall be compelled in the national 
interest to place their land at the disposal of the State.’ That it 
is really to the national interest that the Poles should be harried 
from their estates and homes is taken for granted, though the 
proposed measure has excited alarm and reprobation in German 
circles of undeniable integrity and as warmly opposed to the 
Polish national movement as Prince Bulow himself. 

Compulsory expropriation aimed at one particular race, and that 
race part of the Prussian State, can with difficulty be reconciled 
with the provision of the constitution which declares property to 
be ‘* inviolable,’ but it is characteristic of the anti-Polish party 
that constitutional and political scruples do not in the least 


f 


486 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


influence it. For it the only question is whether the coercive 
measures offer a reasonable prospect of success, and whether the 
results will be proportionate to the cost. ‘‘ A hundred million 
marks spent in this way,’’ said a spokesman of the party recently, 
‘‘mean only three shillings per head of the Prussian nation, and 
the interest to but a few pence. In national questions such an 
expenditure is not worth talking about.’’ Nothing could better 
indicate the entire spirit of the Polish policy than this reduction 
of a question involving profoundly important issues to a mere 
matter of money. That the expropriation of the Polish landowners 
would effect the end desired is seriously believed by no one 
outside the circle which for the present is so charmed by the idea 
of force as to be incapable of weighing dispassionately the 
meaning of the Government’s latest move. Least of all do 
the Poles fear extinction. ‘‘ We Poles do not regard the matter 
so tragically,’’ said recently Dr. von Dziembowski, a member of 
the Imperial and of the Prussian Diet. ‘‘ We exist still in spite 
of many exceptional laws, and these laws have nearly always 
been to the advantage of Polonism rather than Germanism. So 
it will be with the measure of expropriation. The Poles will as 
a result get hold of plenty of ready money, their material position 
will be raised, and we shall less than ever experience lack of 
funds, for the money deposited in the Polish banks for industrial 
purposes will bear rich fruit.’ So, too, Herr Rowadski, another 
well-known leader of the Polish movement, writes: ‘‘ The 
principal effect of the expropriation of the landowners will be 
the Polonising of the towns in the East. The Poles driven 
from the land will turn themselves to trade and industry, in 
order to counteract the operation of the law of expropriation 
in another way.” 

But the Polonising of the towns here referred to has already 
begun, and it is a punishment which Germanism has wilfully 
brought upon itself. One of the most remarkable results of the 
Polish awakening in the East is the growth of a thriving com- 
mercial and artisan class. The Poles of the towns are no 
longer hewers of wood and drawers of water for their German 
fellow-subjects. More and more they are ousting the Germans 
from the exclusive position they have held for years, and are 
coming to the front in mercantile and industrial life. It is 
significant that in this building up of the Polish people the 


THE POLISH QUESTION 487 


handicraftsmen are taking an important part. Since the Poles 
were driven from the country districts to the towns by the 
operation of the settlement legislation an entire race of artisans 
has sprung up. ‘These Polish artisans are assisted by the 
national banks and co-operative societies, which advance money 
to any respectable tradespeople of Polish race on very easy 
terms, viewing the growth of a lower middle class as one of the 
strongest weapons of defence against Germanism. Once estab- 
lished, the Polish artisan or trader has little to fear. His 
livelihood may not be brilliant, but it is certain, and for the rest 
he is frugal and has few wants. No Pole will trade with a 
German if he can help it; ‘‘ Polish business for Poles”’ is the 
principle tacitly followed, and where the Poles are in a majority 
German tradesmen have little chance. On the Government’s 
admission there were in 1905 10,600 independent artisans of 
Polish nationality, against 10,300 of German nationality, in the 
towns with a population of 5,000 and upwards in the province 
of Posen. 

‘‘ Thirty, and even twenty, years ago,’ wrote the North 
German Gazette recently, ‘‘ German artisans were dominant in 
the small towns of the East Mark, and lived for the most part in 
good circumstances. Now the handicrafts in these small towns 
are entirely in Polish hands, and where a German artisan is 
settled his economic position is generally a very unhappy one. 
In the large towns business life preserves its German character 
to the extent that, with few exceptions, all large business 
concerns are still in German hands, and the large and thriving 
industry is entirely German, but lower down the persistent 
upward movement of small Polish handicrafts is noticeable. 
One after another new Polish artisans set up business, and side 
by side with them the number of the small Polish traders 
increases. Many handicraft businesses, which for generations 
were in the same German hands, have passed by sale into Polish 
hands, and so the number of German artisans and tradespeople 
gradually decreases.” 

‘* So there springs up in every town,” says the writer, ‘‘ one 
Polish shop, one Polish workshop, after the other; more and 
more the small Polish businesses push into the centre, into the 
main arteries of trade, and the Germans are gradually being super- 
seded, The smaller the town the less are the Germans able to 


488 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


hold their position under such circumstances. The Poles are 
pressing irresistibly forward, the Germans are being driven into 
an attitude of defence, which the longer it lasts will become the 
more untenable unless all the districts of the East Mark recog- 
nise the issues at stake, and give to the struggling German 
industrial middle class powerful support.” 

In truth the revolution which the Germans in the East 
most seriously fear is not a political revolution, but an economic 
revolution, which will transfer wealth, power, and influence 
from the dominant to the subject race. The feeling of Germans 
on the spot is well reflected by a letter from the province of 
Posen which appeared in the National Zeitung some time ago: 
‘‘Trresistibly, like a Juggernaut car, the Slavonic element rolls 
onward ; step by step it conquers the towns and villages of the 
Prussian East. It is not nowadays political separation by revo- 
lutionary methods that is in question, but the quiet, noiseless 
political and social conquest of those regions. . . . Whenever 
the place of a lawyer or of a chemist is free the Pole steps into 
it; whenever a piece of land in town or country is for sale 
Polish money is offered for it, and this money streams into the 
country from secret sources which seem to be simply inexhaus- 
tible. The German, who has not this vast economic and social 
backing, forsakes the soil where he is in the position of the 
weaker party, and where he must remain so unless all Germany 
helps him. The Pole stays, the German goes; that is the 
wretched Polish question in a nutshell.” 

That the Poles have only answered intolerance with intoler- 
ance, bitterness with bitterness, must be frankly admitted, and 
Polish human nature would be very different from any other were 
it otherwise. There are friendly relations as well as unfriendly 
between Pole and German, but the former is the exception, the 
latter the normal condition of things. It is in the rural districts 
that the racial antagonism comes most to the front, and how 
intense it can be there may be illustrated by an incident told 
in the Prussian Parliament some time ago. A child of a mixed 
matriage, in attendance at school, hesitated to answer questions in 
German though known to be proficient in the “‘ alien” language, 
and being pressed for the reason, confessed that its mother had 
threatened to kill it if it spoke but one word of German. An 
empty threat, yet one which well exemplifies the hatred which has 


THE POLISH QUESTION 489 


entered into the Polish blood. That the Polish priest should 
decline to acknowledge the greeting of passing German children 
shows the same feeling from the trivial side. ‘‘'The Slavs,” 
admitted not long ago the Radical Vossische Zeitung of Berlin, 
ajournal by no means unfriendly to the Poles, ‘‘ though living 
amongst Germans, have in no sense of the word become 
Germanised in spite of all the efforts made to produce that 
result.””’ And the Polish journal, the Katohk, published in 
Upper Silesia, promptly confirmed this statement by the utter- 
ance: ‘* Every Polish-speaking Upper Silesian is by nationality 
a Pole, and only provisionally a citizen of the Prussian monarchy. 
Whoever maintains that the Upper Silesian is a Prussian makes 
a vast mistake.” 

In whatever part of the Empire they live, in fact, the Poles 
keep themselves apart from the rest of their fellow-subjects just 
as the Jews do, and more than the Jews like to do, since the 
Poles isolate themselves voluntarily and of preference, while the 
Jews do it of painful necessity. Inter-marriage is deprecated, 
and though it is by no means a rare occurrence in certain classes 
of the population, events have altogether falsified the belief in 
which Prince Bismarck used to find comfort a generation or 
more ago, that the best way of settling the Polish question 
would be for German swains to endeavour to capture the 
dark-haired maidens of the Eastern provinces. No Poles will 
be found in the ordinary societies in which citizens associate 
for mutual edification or benefit. The Polish farmer goes his 
own way, though his neighbours combine for the various purposes 
with which the co-operative movement has familiarised the 
German agricultural classes. Where it is a question of the 
German or the Polish language having to succumb, it is never 
the Polish. An amusing incident arising out of a recent visit 
paid to one of the settled districts by Herr von Bethmann- 
Hollweg, Prussian Minister of the Interior, illustrates this. 
Passing through one of the new villages, the Minister stopped to 
speak to a German colonist. ‘* Well, and how do you like your 
new home?” he asked. ‘“‘ All right,” was the cheery reply, 
“except that we cannot yet sufficiently understand the Poles. 
But” (reassuringly), ‘‘never mind, we shall learn Polish 
yet!” 

One may observe the same concentration in the case of the 


490 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


Italians who are so extensively engaged in outdoor labour in 
various parts of the Empire, and particularly in Alsace-Lorraine, 
where as many as 50,000 have been settled at one time; yet 
while the Italians: follow the life to which they have been 
accustomed at home, trading almost exclusively with com- 
patriots, there is no attempt to force their national self-conscious- 
ness, even if it exists, upon the attention of their neighbours. 
They work and sleep, drink, sing, and fight, as they so dearly 
love to do, and for the rest that land is for the time being their 
patria which treats them best. In the case of the Poles the 
isolation is deliberate, obtrusive, ostentatious, and not un- 
naturally it breeds resentment, inasmuch as there is no conceal- 
ment of the fact that it proceeds from disaffection and a tacit 
repudiation of the common citizenship. The Polish workmen in 
the mining districts eschew the German trade unions, and is 
indifferent to their efforts to advance the interests of labour. 
In the industrial districts of West Prussia especially the Poles 
are to be found in tens of thousands, yet they form separate 
colonies, mixing little with the Teutonic element, cultivating 
with it no comradeship whatever, but asserting even in mine, 
factory, and workshop their claim to lead a life of racial inde- 


pendence. So, too, the Poles pass through the army like every - 
other race in the Empire, but this duty to the law is discharged — 


without enthusiasm, and they are never found in the Krieger- 
vereine which keep together in genial comradeship the discharged 
conscripts who have served their two or three years with the 
colours together. 

The only organisations which the Poles recognise are their 


rs 


own national ‘‘ Sokol”’ associations, to belong to which is 
regarded as a patriotic duty. Nominally these ‘“‘ Sokol ” associa-_ 


tions exist for social and educational purposes, but, like the 
Working Men’s Improvement Associations which overspread 
Prussia in the ’sixties, and brought Ferdinand Lassalle to the 


front, they devote most attention to ends which are least avowed, ~ 


a a 


or not avowed at all, and these are political. So far as is known 
though the subject is one upon which the Poles themselves are — 
naturally very reticent—the number of these societies of agitation — 


does not fall below a thousand, with an average membership — 


approximately of a hundred. It was estimated that in 1906 
60,000 Polish workmen were organised in the national unions of 


THE POLISH QUESTION 491 


various kinds, the oldest being the Mutual Help Association 
working in Upper Silesia, with 12,000 members, the strongest 
the Trade Union of the coal miners at Bochum with 42,000 
members. It is, however, difficult to establish the existence of 
Polish societies, even in face of the most reasonable suspicions, 
and still more to convict these societies of forbidden political 
propagandism. Nothing, in fact, illustrates the close bond of 
sympathy and interest which knits the Poles together than the 
remarkable secrecy which they are able to maintain touching 
the national movements and aspirations which are cultivated in 
their midst. 

These, however, are not by any means the only ways by which 
the fires of national sentiment are fanned and fed. There are 
endless methods of appealing to the popular imagination—as by 
dramatic performances, by public song and lecture, by the circu- 
lation of books and ephemeral literature, and the like—methods 


which, while effective for the end in view, are often able to 


evade the restraining arm, if not always the vigilant eye, of 
the law. | 

This isolation of the Poles from the Germanic elements of the 
population has everywhere been accompanied by a closer drawing 
together of the Slav elements themselves. Perhaps the most 
remarkable feature of the national movement is the hold which 
it has obtained upon the imaginations and sympathies of the 
less cultured classes. Fora long time the movement was con- 
fined in the main to the nobility and the higher burgher classes 
—in a word, to the more intelligent and more thoughtful sections 
of the Polish population. The rest kept aloof, lukewarm if not 
cold, and their indifference was the leaders’ despair. Nowadays 
no more ardent adherents of the Polish national cause are to be 
found than the thriving middle class which has grown up during 
the past thirty years—thanks largely to the benevolent legislation 


of the much-abused Prussian monarchy—and the lower orders 


of Polish society. The national movement is now no longer 
confined to a few idealists of enthusiastic temperament, but is 
heartily embraced by every section of the race, which in all parts 


_of the Empire makes common cause. 


iy 
.. 


How far the movement is genuinely revolutionary is naturally, 
at its present stage, a question of opinion rather than of fact. 
Of late years the Government has come more and more to 


492 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


believe that it has really to do with a systematic conspiracy 
against the integrity of the State, and for this suspicion there 
would be ground enough if the utterances of the less temperate 
of Polish journals could be accepted seriously. In the national 
Press articles of an unquestionably treasonable character are 
of common appearance. Allegiance to the Prussian monarchy 
is deprecated when it goes beyond mere lip service, and the day 
is openly predicted when the Prussian yoke will be thrown off 
and Great Poland will be restored. 

‘“To what end should Poles give assurances of loyalty?” 
asked not long ago the Praca. ‘‘ The insincerity with which 
we make ourselves and others believe that our end is not the 
realisation of our ideal, an independent Poland, but merely 
the defence of our mother-tongue, avenges itself upon all of us. 
. . . Can our people, tortured and martyred as they are, feel 
the slightest spark of this loyalty and allegiance? Is there one 
Pole in Prussia who ean say, hand on heart, that we can be 
loyal to the Prussian Government? ‘Then let him come for- 
ward! ... The belief in the future independence of our 
fatherland lies deep in every Polish heart. . . . We have 
often shown how subjugated nations only regain independence 
with ‘ blood and iron.’ ”’ 

And to quote from the Polak, of Posen: ‘‘ This is our rela- 
tionship to the Prussian Government. Our allegiance is not 
worth the blacking on a soldier’s boots. We are neither 
faithful nor loyal, and bear not a single good wish towards 
the Government in our hearts.”’ 

‘*Tf we had only to do with the three million Poles in 
Prussia,’ wrote the late Chief Mayor of Posen, ‘“‘and if 
the confessional division of our nation did not exist, the solu- 
tion of the Polish difficulty might not be difficult. But the 
organisation of the Poles numbers at least ten million people 
and extends to every part of the earth. The power and the 
influence of this organisation must not be under-estimated, 
especially as it is entirely hostile to Germany. That the 
Poles are working both on economic and political lines for 
the re-establishment of an independent Polish kingdom is an 
incontrovertible fact. Cowed, yet at all times ready for a spring, 
the Poles follow assiduously the political vicissitudes of Europe. 
Under these circumstances one is justified in speaking not 





THE POLISH QUESTION 493 


‘only of a Polish question but of a Polish danger in the East 
‘Mark. The democracy and not the clergy is at the head of the 
movement.”’ 

Not long ago copies of a Polish prayer-book, circulating 
amongst the colliers of Westphalia, were confiscated by the 
police, who found therein invocations like the following :— 

‘Mother of God, Queen of the Poles, save Poland! All 

-holy protectors of the Polish Republic, pray for us! 
‘‘ From the Muscovite and Prussian bondage free us, O Lord! 
** By the martyrdom of the 20,000 citizens of Prague, who 
were murdered for their faith and freedom, free us, O Lord! 
‘* By the martyrdom of the soldiers murdered by the Prussians 
in Fischau, free us, O Lord! 

‘For weapons and for the national eagles we beseech Thee, 
O Lord! 

‘* For death on the battlefield we beseech thee, O Lord ! 

‘*For the battle for the independence, unity, and freedom 
of our Fatherland, we beseech Thee, O Lord! 

**For the equality and fraternity of the Polish people, we 
beseech Thee, O Lord! 

** For the re-possession of the Polish Fatherland, we beseech 
Thee, O Lord! 

** For an early universal call ‘To arms!’ we beseech Thee, 
O Lord!” 

What gives greater importance to avowals of national 
aspirations such as these in the eyes of the authorities is the 
knowledge that they represent the ideals of the Poles every- 
where. In Prussia generally the Poles now fraternise with their 
kinsmen in Russia and Austria. Hence the significance of 
utterances like those of the organ of the Polish democratic 
party in Russian Poland: ‘‘ Poland will reacquire her inde- 
pendence only after a great war either between the Powers who 
divided Poland among them or between one or two of these 
Powers and other States in connection with a national rising 
of so potent a character that it will have to be reckoned with. 
. .. When the Transvaal War broke out and there were 
rumours of intervention, and, again, in consequence of the 
Chinese difficulty, a ferment gradually and quietly spread 
through the population of Russian Poland, where the tradi- 
tion of active measures for the national cause is most strongly 


494 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


developed. When the report arrived that the Reserves were 
to be called out our political friends in touch with the people 
were overwhelmed with requests for advice as to the attitude 
that should be adopted. The people could not decide if they 
should flee the country or should remain hidden at home in 
readiness to respond to the call to fight for the independence 
of Poland. The people are convinced that such a fight will 
necessarily follow the outbreak of a great European war.” 

It is, of course, impossible to say how far utterances of this 
kind should be taken seriously, and it is only fair to remember 
that the more responsible leaders, while national to the heart’s 
core, recognise that political independence is no longer pos- 
sible, and—though without either gratitude or satisfaction— 
frankly accept the connection with Prussia as a finished fact 
of history, to be deplored, to be resented, but not under existing 
conditions to be undone. Those who do not take this indulgent 
view of the Polish agitation are never weary of quoting the 
words said—and doubtless with truth—at a national festival 
several years ago by Deputy von Koscielski, a wealthy land- 
owner and a popular leader of undeniable influence: ‘‘ You must 
be, you must remain, Poles, and if needs be you must defend 
yourselves as in the old days with axe and hatchet and scythe. 
At the present time we have no king. In times past the Arch- 
bishop assumed the reins of government in such a case. So 
now you must cling to him and consider him as your king.” 
But Herr von Koscielski would be the first to admit if ques- 
tioned that his words were rhetorical and were not intended to 
be taken literally. Moreover, his appeal to the late Archbishop 
Stablewski was an appeal to one of the most level-headed 
members of the Polish race, a man whose influence was con- 
sistently exercised in the direction of moderation. ‘‘ What 
do people fear from us?” asked Dr. von Stablewski. ‘‘ For 
more than thirty years the land has been perfectly quiet so 
far as we are concerned. Common-sense demands that we 
should conduct ourselves properly. An insurrection is impos- 
sible nowadays, for a single battalion would suffice to overcome 
100,000 men armed with scythes. . . . We feel that we are 
Prussian subjects, and we have unreservedly acknowledged the 
existing state of affairs. We do not know what will happen 
in two or three hundred years, and if we paint pictures for 





THE POLISH QUESTION 495 


ourselves of the future no one can object, as such dreams do 
‘not hinder us from fulfilling with pleasure our civic duties.” 
Moreover, even the most uncompromising of Poles so far 
recognises the status quo as to accept the dictum of Prince 
Bismarck that ‘‘The re-establishment of the kingdom of 
Poland, the tearing away of the Polish-speaking provinces 
_of Prussia, would only be possible if Prussia were worsted in 
_war.’’ Then, indeed, not merely the Polish question, but other 
‘racial questions bound up in the future of Prussia and the 
Empire would at once pass into the political crucible. But 
obviously nebulous hopes which are thus contingent upon the 
incalculable vicissitudes of State life fall into a different category 
‘from those which are based upon systematic revolutionary 
agitation, and should be more leniently judged. The Prussian 
Government and judicial authorities think otherwise, however, 
and in their genuine alarm and apprehension lies the most 
charitable explanation of the more drastic régime now in force. 
At the same time some of the measures to which the police 
have resorted in their determination to nip the Polish plot in 
the bud will hardly help to convince sensible people that the 
danger is a very real one. At Thorn a veritable mare’s nest 
was discovered by these zealous officials. Somehow they had 
got wind of a schoolboys’ secret society, and all sorts of terrible 
things were reported of it. Having set up the theory that a 
clandestine organisation existed, the next step was to convict it 
of treasonable practices and to lay bare the dark devices by means 
of which its nefarious designs against the State were furthered. 
A certain school in the town attended by many boys of Polish 
parentage was marked as the centre of conspiracy, and in order 
to bring the guilt home to the young suspects the police made 
visits to some of their homes during school hours.” In six houses 
historical and ecclesiastical books printed in the Polish language 
were ‘‘discovered,’ and they were solemnly confiscated as 
constituting proof of illegal intentions. Not only so, but the 
police carried the farce so far as to indict no fewer than sixty 
| boys on a charge of belonging to an illegal society, and the trial 
came off duly at Thorn. The existence of a society amongst 
schoolboys was never denied, nor was it disputed that this 
society endeavoured to promote the study of Polish history and 
Polish literature, since these subjects are excluded from the 


496 THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GERMANY 


schools, but the imputation of treasonable intent was from the 
beginning absurd. Nevertheless, some of the accused were 
expelled the town and district. As evidencing the spirit of 
solidarity which binds Poles together all over the Continent, it 
is worthy of note that the Polish students resident in Switzer- 
land promptly raised the sum of £1,000 for the purpose of 
assisting the expelled youths to study at Lemberg or Cracow. 

The present position of the Polish question, then, is this—on 
the Prussian side repression, on the Polish side embitterment 
and exasperation; on both sides suspicion and antagonism. 
One may view the Polish national movement as unfavourably 
as he will, yet the warmest friend of Prussian unity, if he but 
possess the faculty for seeing both sides of a question, will be 
compelled to concede the reasonableness of Dr. von Jazdzowski’s 
plea, made in the Prussian Diet during a recent debate :— 

‘¢ When a people which has been incorporated in the Prussian 
monarchy by international treaties, with the assurance, with the 
solemnly uttered royal promise, that its nationality shall be pro- 
tected and cultivated under Prussian auspices, and its language 
be preserved in official and private life—when all these pledges 
and promises are withheld from this people, which has suffered 
misfortune enough in losing its political independence, and are- 
reversed, it cannot be wondered if such a population, with a 
thousand-year-old history and civilisation behind it, is dis- 
satisfied and even exasperated by the Government’s hostile 
measures, and if with its lively nature it gives energetic 
expression to its.discontent and deep displeasure.” 

It is impossible to resist the conclusion that Prussia is doing 
its best to make the Poles bad Germans instead of good Poles. 
Such a policy cannot succeed, and its success would be more 
mischievous than its failure. There is profound significance 
in the words recently spoken by a German Deputy in the 
Prussian Diet: ‘‘We should not Germanise with the Land- 
rath, the gendarme, and the assessors, but with the German 
schoolmaster. If only one-tenth of the money which has been 
spent in buying up estates had been used in planting the right 
teachers in Polish districts, men who understood how to create 
in the minds of the young Poles an appreciation for German 
culture, we should have done well.” A sentiment like this 

belongs to another age than the present, though a coming 


THE POLISH QUESTION 497 


generation may come back to it. There is certainly truth in 
the lament of the Polish nobleman mentioned above: ‘‘ The 
Prussian Government, so methodical, so exact, so precise in 
most matters, has never learned how to win the love and con- 
fidence of those whom it rules. It can only destroy, placing 
Germans in the place of the Poles who are wiped out.” It is 
exactly this national spirit of unwavering precision, of inflexible 
discipline—so admirable in itself, and when applied where pro- 
perly applicable productive of the most admirable results—which 
accounts for Prussia’s failure, after a trial lasting over a hundred 
years, to pacify the Polish provinces and to induce them to 
throw in their lot heartily with the rest of the monarchy. 
Perhaps the end which has not been reached by the imposi- 
tion of an arbitrary system of “‘ regimentation ” will eventually 
be attained by the employment of suaver measures. 





INDEX 


AGRARIAN movement, 227, 250-254, | British trade with Germany, 49 © 


287-289 Biilow, Prince von, 251, 332, 356, 
Agreements, wages, 188-142, 275- 442, 448, 454, 462 

279 Bureaucratic career no longer at- 
Agriculture and industry, 226-254 tractive, 9 


Agricultural Germany, 23-36, 226- 
254, 265-293; population, 24-27, 
40-48; labour difficulty, 27, 265- 
293; wages, 271-280; co-opera- | Canal system, 74, 88, 216-225 
tion, 294-807 Capital and labour, relations be- 


Ca’-CANNY movement, 132 
Agricultural schools in Saxony, tween, 106-147 


Calwer, R.,180,190, 341,399,455, 457 


100, 103 Caprivi, Count, 239, 248, 377, 409 
Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), 77 Cartells, the, 170-206 
Annaberg, 98 Centripetal and centrifugal influ- 
Architecture, modern German, 12- ences, 424—443 
14 Chambers of Commerce, 90, 91; 
Arndt, 6 of Labour, 137 
Arnim, Herr von, 244 Characteristics of German trader, 
Aschaffenburg, 218 78, 79, 85-87 
Charlemagne, 13 
Charlottenburg, 310, 311, 317, 319, 
821-824, 330 
Charlottenburg Technical College, 
97 


BaGpaD railway, 345, 346 

Bamberg, 218 

Bautzen, 102 

Bebel, Herr, 446, 458 

Berlin, 4, 18, 88, 42, 55, 76, 98, 129, 

' 918, 219, 809, 311, 317, 829 

‘Bernstein, Dr., 899, 455 

Bethmann- Hollweg, Herr von, 459 

Bielefeld, 23 

Birth-rates, 28, 808-3138 

Bismarck, Prince, his worship of 
force, 11; Hamburg statue of, 
18; parliamentary government, 
20, 482; labour questions, 133; | Colonies and colonial policy, 341- 
agrarianism, 239; territorial 846, 858-401 
“satiety,” 334; colonies, 360- | Commercial schools in Saxony, 
866; particularism, 425; Polish 100, 103 


Chemical industry, 44-46, 58, 59, 
85, 86 

Chemnitz, 77, 98, 102 

Childhood, protection of, 326-331 

Civilisation, youth of German, 16 

Climate of Kast Prussia, 32 

Coal-mining industry, 28, 46-49 

Cobden, Richard, 76 

Cologne, 73, 217, 219, 317, 319 


question, 467, 468, 476 Compulsory education, 104 
Black lists, employers’, 126, 127 Concentration, industrial, 59-61, 
Bochum, 310 190-194 
Bremen, 71, 98, 820 Conciliation, industrial, 185-147 
Bremerhaven, 71 Confessional division of the nation, 
Brentano, Professor, 198, 229 25, 26 


499 


500 


Constitutional questions, 19, 20, 
84, 429-443 

Co-operation, 294-807; industrial, 
146 


Corn-growing and crops, 32, 230- 
242 


Cotton trade, 56-58 
Courts, industrial, 186 
Crefeld, 23, 61, 97, 310, 811 


Davin, Dr., 399, 464 

Death-rates, 310-313 

Debts, national and Imperial, 405 

Deimling, General von, 397 

Delbriick, Dr., 201 

Deutz, 217 

Dernburg, Herr B., and the colo- 
nies, 367-401 

Dominicus, Herr, 329 

Dortmund and the coal industry, 
23, 47, 218, 310 

Dresden, 76, 101-103, 218, 225 

Drinking habits of the working 
classes, 164-169 

Duisburg, 74, 217, 218, 310, 311 

Diisseldorf, 73, 85, 217, 219 

Duties, proposed river, 219-225 

Dyeing industry, 59 

Dziembowski, Dr., 486 


East of Prussia, characteristics of, 
21, 24-86; reasons for backward- 
ness, 381-33 ; climate, 32 

Eckermann, Goethe’s letter to, 1 

Education, 7, 85, 86; technical, 
95-105 

Education, workmen’s enthusiasm 
for, 158-164 

Ehrenberg, Professor, 288 

Hichendorff, 6 

Elbe, Germany East of the, 18, 
22-36, 269 

Elberfeld, 23, 61, 77 

Elector, Great, and colonies, 358, 
875, 443, 476 

Electrical industry, 55, 56 

Emden, 218 

Enigration, 237, 238, 341, 342 

Emperor William I. and constitu- 
tion, 489, 440; William II. and 
industry, 89; and navy, 349-351, 
356; and Poles, 471 

Employers and employed, relations 
between, 106-147 

Engineering industries, 23. 44, 45, 
130 


INDEX 


English enterprise in Germany, 
early, 75-77 

Entail, law of, 258-260 

Enterprise, State, 87, 207-225 

Essen, 23, 310-311 

Evolution of modern Germany, 
wherein it consists, 2 

Expansion, national, 334-357 

Export trade, 65-70, 92, 93 


Factory legislation, 152, 382 

Factory system, English, 461 

Fichte, 8, 6; prediction quoted, 4, 
5-11 


Fischer, Herr E., 449, 450 

Force cult, the, 10-15 

Foreign aims and policy, 1 

Foreign trade, 65-70 

Foreigners and foreign labour in 
Germany, 265, 289-291 

Frankfort-on- -Main, 78; 208 

Frederick the Great, 82, 246, 443, 
476 

Frederick William I. of Cem 
359, 476 

Freiberg, 98, 101 

French influence in Western Ger- 
many, 21 

French War, influence of, 7, 87, 38 

Freytag, Gustav, 228 

Frébel, 326 


GEIBEL, 6, 838 

Gelsenkirchen, 310, 311 

Germany, modern evolution of, 2; 
national characteristics, 2-15, 
17-22; natural division, 18, 19; 
industrial, 22-26, 87-64; agri- 
cultural, 28-36 

Gladbach, 23 

Goethe quoted, 18.42 

Gossler, Dr. von, 474 

Government encouragement of 
trade, 87 

Government, local, in East Prussia, 
80, 31 

Great Britain, trade with Ger- 
many, 49, 65-70 


Haug, 811, 319 

Tamburg, 71, 98, 219, 318 

Handicrafts, the struggle of the, 
61, 62 

Hanover, 218, 310 

Harbours, development of, 71-74 

Herder, 22 


INDEX 


- Hohenlohe, Prince, 245, 375, 878 

Holdings movement, the small, 
255-264 

Home life, the workman’s, 153 

Hours of labour, 80, 129-132, 329 

House industries, 63, 64, 97 

Housewife, the German, 158 


Ipzatwm dethroned in Germany, 


2, 8 
Import trade, 65-70 
Income-tax, German, 417-422 
Industrial Code, 107, 136, 283 
Industrial conciliation, 185-147 
Industrial Germany, 22-26, 37-64; 
population, 24-27, 40-44; schools, 
102; concentration, 59-61; Courts, 
186 ; co-operation, 146 
Industries, principal, 45; rural, 68, 
64 


Infantile mortality, 28, 309-325 

Insurance against strikes, em- 
ployers’, 128 

Insurance laws, 156, 831 

Iron and steel trades, 23, 44, 45, 
49-58, 81--85 


JAZDZEWSKI, Dr., 472, 496 


Kanttz, Count, 287 

Kant, 3, 11, 22 

Kirchenheim, Professor von, 325 
Kirdorf, Herr, 84, 122, 196, 198 
‘Kirschner, Dr., 328 

Knowledge, appreciation of, 3 
Konigsberg, 311 

Korner, 6 


Lasoug Day movement, 127, 128 

Labour difficulty, agricultural, 27, 
265-293 

Labour, hours of, 80, 129-182, 329; 
capital and, 106-147; demands 
of, 128-132; wages, 80, 129; 
municipal action, 183, 134; 
temperance movement, 164-169; 
attitude to the syndicates, 194- 
197 

Land, migration from the, 265-293 

Lassalle, Ferdinand, 159, 490 

Leipzig, 101-103, 321 

Lenau, 6 

Leutwein, General, 365 

Lessing, 22 

Lindequist, Governor, 393 

Local government, 30, 31 


501 


Looms, number of, 57 

Liibeck, 98 

Liideritz, Herr, 360 

Ludwigshafen, 219 

Luschan, Professor F., and the 
colonies, 369 


MaGpEBuRG, 218 

Mannheim, 72, 73, 219, 225 

Manors and manorial government, 
29-31 

Material ambition, Germany’s, 11 

Materialism triumphant in Ger- 
many, 2, 7, 9 

Matter versws mind, 15 

Mayence, 219 

Mayet, Professor, 321 

Menzel, 81 

Meyer, Dr. M., 127 

Military service, effect of, 151 

Minden, 218 

Mining industries, 49, 50 

Mittweida, 102 

‘* Mixed”’ versws ‘‘pure’’ works, 
83-85 

Monarchical spirit, strength of the, 
427 

Mortality, rates of, 28, 310-314 

Motherhood Protection League, 
322 

Miihlberg, Dr. von, 347 

Miihlhausen, 218 

Miilhausen, 76 

Miinchen-Gladbach, 23, 823 

Munich, 319 

Municipalities and labour, 133, 1384 


NACHTIGAL, Gustav, 859 

National forms of life, abandon- 
ment of, 1; characteristics, 2-15, 
17-22 

Navy, German, 54, 347-357 

Navy League, German, 353, 354 

Nuremberg, 218 


OccUPATION censuses, 43 
Oldenburg, Professor, 249 


PapsER industry, 59 

Parliamentary problems, 429-443 

Particularism, German, 407, 425- 
429 

Paulsen, Professor F., quoted, 8, 
11, 348 

Peace, Germany’s desire for, 12 

Peasantry, the small, 255-264 


502 


Peters, Dr. Karl, 386, 398 
Pig-iron, production of, 51, 52, 80, 
81 


Plauen, 101, 103 

Polish question, the, 467-497 

Political ambition, Germany’s, 1, 
2, 11, 8346-857 

Political thought of the South, 22, 
434, 468, 464 

Population, agricultural and in- 
dustrial, compared, 24-27, 39- 
44 

Population question, the, 308-333, 
836-343 

Posadowsky, Count von, 124, 130, 
148, 381, 419 

Potsdam, 218 

Press, Labour, 117-119 

Production in iron industry,modern 
conditions of, 80-85 

Profit-sharing, 143 

Proprietors, the large landed, 28, 
258 

Protection and the syndicates, 173, 
174 

Protective duties, origin of, 408 

Prussia, characteristics of the East 
of, 20, 24-36 ; climate, 32 

Prussia, constitution of, 19, 20, 434— 
437 

Prussia often confounded with 
Germany, 19 


RAIFFEISEN, the co-operator, 298, 
299 

Railways, State, 87, 88, 208-216 

Raule, Admiral, 3'75 

Reichstag, powers of the, 429-443 

Rein, Professor, quoted, 9 

Remscheid, 61 

Rheinbaben, Baron von, 406, 413, 
417 

Rivers and waterways, 71-74 

Rohrbach, Dr. P., 836, 838, 3438, 
345, 348, 393 

Romanism in the German charac- 
ter, 14 

Riickert, 6 

Rural industries, 63, 64 

Rural labour question, 264-2938 

Ruskin, John, quoted, 12 


Sanarres in Germany, 79, 105 

Saxony, its industries, 22, 46, 
57, 61, 77, 129 

Schiller, 3, 6, 11 


INDEX 


epee Professor Gustav, 123, 

98 

Scholarship, devotion to, 3 

Schoneberg, 310, 318, 323 

School doctors, 328 

Schulze-Delitsch, the co-operator, 
294-298 

Science and industry, 85, 86 

Sering, Professer, 229 

Servants’ ordinances, 280, 281 

Settlement scheme, the Polish, 
257, 261, 467-497 

Ship-building industry, 53, 54 

Shipping trade, 69-71 

Siemens, 55 

Silk industry, 61 

Small holdings movement, 255- 
264 

Social democracy, rural agitation, 
291, 292, 450 

Social welfare, employers’ policy of, 
143-146 

Socialism and labour, 158-168 

Socialism, outlook of, 444-466 

Socialist Press, 117, 118 

Sohnrey, H., 288, 284 

Solingen, 61, 317 

South Germany, sociai life in, 
23 

Spencer, Herbert, quoted, 2 

Spindles, number of, 57 

Stablewski, Archbishop von, 494 

State and canals, 216-225 


State and education, 99-105; and 


labour, 183 

State enterprise, 47, 207-225 

State railways, 87, 88, 208-216 

Steel industry, 23, 44, 45, 51-53, 
81-85 

Stein, Baron vom, 29,30; emanci- 
pation of serfs, 30 

Stengel, Baron von, 404 

Stettin, 218, 219, 311, 319 

Stosch, Admiral, 54 

Strassburg, 218, 829 

Strikes, 115, 127, 128 

Subjective epochs, Goethe on, 1 

Success, reasons for Germany’s 
industrial, 78-94 

Sugar industry, 59 

Sunday labour, 182 

Syndicates, 170-206; Coal, 48, 83, 
176-206 ; Steel, 83-85, 176-206 ; 
Spirit, 181; Coke, 188; Pig-iron, 


184, 186; Tin-plate, 187; atti- 


tude of labour, 194-197 


INDEX 


System of technical schools, 95- 
105 


TaxaTIoN, National and Imperial, 
402-423 

Technical education, 95-105 

Temperance movement, the labour, 
164-169 

Textile trades, 23, 44, 45, 56-58, 
130, 131 

Tharandt, 101 

Towns, large and small, 88, 39, 42 

Trade, foreign, 65-70 

Trade unions, 106-134; Socialistie, 
108-111; Christian, 108, 112- 
114; Hirsch-Duncker, 108, 112; 
‘‘ Yellow,” 108, 114; leaders, 
119; employers’ antagonism to, 
122-128, 196; attitude of the 
syndicates, 194-197 

Trotha, General, 892 

Tiirk, Herr von, 325 


Voxiimar, Herr von, 458, 459, 462, 
463 


Waass, 80, 129; agricultural, 271- 
280 


Wages agreements, 138-142; (agri- 
cultural), 275-279. 


503 


Wagener, Professor A., 187, 417 

Wiesbaden, 310, 319 

William I., Emperor, and consti- 
tution, 489, 440; William IT. ane 
industry, 89; and navy, 349-351, 
856; and Poles, 471 

Wissmann, Dr. von, 369 

Woollen trade, 56-58 

Working classes and the Syndi- 
cates, 194-197 

Workman, characteristics of, 148- 
169; his trade unions, 106-134; 
effect of military discipline, 151; 
appearance and dress, 151; 
amusements, 154; enthusiasm 
for knowledge, 158-164; tem- 
perance movement, 164-169 

Workmen’s Secretariates, 111, 121 ; 
Committees, 125, 186 

World-policy, 334-357 


YoutnH of German nation and 
civilization, 16 


Zann, Dr. F., and national taxa- 
tion, 419 

Zedlitz, Count, 474 

Zittau, 103 

Zwickau, 98, 102 


SNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON. 





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